Beyond Repair
by fcol
Summary: Darker AU from the final scenes of ESB. What was lost on Bespin can't be so easily replaced, and our heroes must make a final stand with what they have left.  COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N:_**_ Thank you for reading. Before we begin, the obvious disclaimer. I don't own Star Wars, and I'm doing this purely for my own enjoyment, not for profit. I hope that some of you enjoy it too. ;)_

_I owe an immense debt of gratitude to beta readers stargazerlily, Luke1, and Kellie. Thank you so much!  
_

_This story begins at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. It is based only on the first two movies, and purposefully ignores the Prequels, EU, and most of Return of the Jedi. I'm not one of those fans who hates ROTJ, in fact I quite like it. This isn't an attempt to improve on ROTJ in any way, just a darker continuation of the story, a what could have been. For fun, and because I can't stop writing it._

_I'm not in the habit of revealing what, if any, pairings, character deaths, etc will happen in this story. Take what you know about Star Wars, from the Tantive IV to Bespin. Everything after Bespin... well, anything goes from here._

* * *

**Chapter 1**_  
_

Outside the window, the stars spread out before him like a blanket of fire. Beside him, a beautiful woman smiled down at him with concern in her eyes. Across the room, a medical droid was lost in conversation with the ship's computer, filling the room with its beeping and whirring as it argued an impossible case.

Luke Skywalker saw these things and heard them, but they were processed only by the corner of his mind that knew more or less where it was and what it was doing but didn't bother to think too deeply about the details. The rest of his mind was a blank, and at the moment he hoped it would stay that way.

The droid – what was its name again? – finished its conversation and rolled back to his bedside. Its head swiveled down in an approximation of – what? Sympathy? Friendliness? Both were lost on Luke, who nodded mindlessly to the droid and refocused his gaze on the window. "His vitals are sufficient," the droid proclaimed. It spoke to Leia; she was the only one who had shown any interest in what it had had to say so far. "He may be released."

Leia nodded and smiled – it seemed like she'd been smiling ever since they'd been here, and Luke couldn't decide at this particular moment if it was annoying or reassuring. "Thank you, Too-Onebee." So that was the droid's name. "I appreciate all that you've done. Luke?"

"Leia." He heard the question in her voice, but it was easier to pretend that he hadn't. _What happens now? Where do we go from here?_ How was he supposed to answer those questions for her, when he couldn't even answer them for himself? There were a hundred things that he wanted to say to her, and a thousand reasons why he couldn't. Instead, he looked up at her and repeated her name, as if to make sure that she was really there, that he wasn't alone with the droid and the ship and his memories.

"We have to rejoin the Alliance." She made it sound like an apology.

Luke shook his head. "I can't go with you." It was the first thing he'd been certain about in all the time he'd been here. "Can you get me a ship?"

Leia looked down, and it wasn't his face she was looking at.

Luke lifted the stump of his arm, and it was like he was seeing it for the first time. The droids had amputated even further up than Vader had, something about removing the damaged tissue – he hadn't been listening, really, hadn't even cared. The scars were neat and linear, dividing the air between his elbow and where his wrist should have been. He flexed his elbow and was almost surprised to see his own forearm move. It didn't look real, didn't seem real, certainly didn't feel real. He kept expecting to wake up and see his hand back where it was supposed to be. He said nothing of this to Leia, though. What could he have said, that would have made any of it better? She had her own problems. Instead, he looked up at her, tried to smile, and failing that said, "I'll be okay."

"I believe you," she said, almost too quickly. "But I don't know what the Alliance will say." She shook her head, and her eyes fled to the window as well. Out into the stars. She didn't want to be here anymore than he did.

"I can fly."

"I'm sure you can." Leia smiled down at him, her eyes shining with something almost maternal. She meant what she said, too, and Luke knew that she did.

"I'll be back," he promised. "But there's something I need to take care of first. Alone."

"Luke…" He watched her search for the words. "You don't have to prove anything."

"I'm not trying to."

"You should rest."

"I've lost too much time already. I can fly, Leia."

"I haven't even told them…Mon Mothma and the others."

"Please." Luke took her hand and gripped it, and she took a step back.

"Luke?" Her eyes were wide, lost, and he wondered if she could feel it too. The strange power between them that had let him – somehow, impossibly – call out to her on Bespin. That had let her feel him, and find him, and…. "This isn't about your hand, is it?"

"No."

Leia nodded. "What…what happened up there, Luke?"

Luke shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Not yet. I…I have to get out of here." _I have to face Vader. I have to know the truth._ "I have to…I have to move on."

"What about the Alliance?"

"I don't know," he replied, honestly.

"Then what about Han?"

_Han_. Guilt stabbed at him, but Luke shook his head anyway. "Lando knows what he's doing."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and Leia moved in to help him to his feet. "Then where are you off to, Luke?"

He laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. He knew how this must look. He wasn't the wide-eyed optimistic farmboy who had rescued and nearly – maybe more than nearly – fallen in love with the princess of Alderaan three years ago. That boy had been lost with his hand and with his innocence. Or maybe with Hoth. Or maybe even with his aunt and uncle, all those years ago.

"I'm not sure," he said at last, gesturing broadly toward the stars with the hand that was no longer there. "To become a Jedi. To finish what I started. To find out… who I am?" He hadn't meant that last to sound like a question, but it came out that way anyway.

"And you need a ship."

He wrapped his arm around her waist as they looked out at the stars together. "I need a ship," he echoed. "I'll come back this time, Leia. I promise."

"You all right back there, Artoo?"

Luke's voice sounded strange to his own ears, and he heard the little astromech's cheery affirmative as though it were lightyears away. He felt out of touch, as though everything that had happened to him had erected some kind of barrier between him and the rest of the world. If he'd thought that being behind the controls of an X-Wing would remedy that, that conviction was shattered the first time he instinctively reached for the controls with a hand that wasn't there, and blown into oblivion when he found himself asking Artoo to take the ship to autopilot less than half a parsec into the trip. If he was trying to convince himself that he hadn't changed, he'd probably chosen the worst possible way to do it.

"Yeah, I'm all right," he called back. "No, I'm not going to follow the princess. Yes, I'm sure those are the right coordinates."

Artoo burbled a confused but complacent reply, and Luke smiled in spite of himself. His friends, at least, had not changed, and that made at least a small part of the universe seem right.

The stars outside the window blurred to white streaks and then to the violet mélange of hyperspace as Artoo took the ship to lightspeed. It would be easy, he thought, to be hypnotized by the scenery, to drive his mind back into a blank, to cut off even his connection to the Force. It would be easy, maybe, he told himself. But it wouldn't be right. He rested both elbows on the console in front of him, forced himself to look at his left hand – his only hand – and his empty right sleeve. He had his blaster; he had his new ship. His lightsaber was lost.

He had gone to Bespin to confront his friends' torturer, his father's murderer. Instead he had found…_Vader_. He still couldn't bring himself to think of him as anyone, as any_thing_ else. And yet….

_Search your feelings._

He hadn't wanted to. But there hadn't been much of a choice. The Force. The damnable Force that he felt now even if he didn't want to! He had felt it then too, and he had found that, whatever darkness emanated from the man – the creature! – that was Darth Vader…he hadn't been lying.

_Father._

Luke had set out to save the galaxy. And now – he looked again at the fightsuit's empty sleeve – he wasn't sure that he would be able to. What was worse…. _What's worse_, he whispered silently to the emptiness of hyperspace, _I'm not sure that I want to_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

He couldn't see Leia through the smoke.

It was his last coherent thought, and Han Solo held onto it as he was plunged into a world of ice and fire and above all pain. Every inch of his body screamed in the crimson silence, and then all was black. He couldn't see Leia through the smoke.

And then the darkness shimmered and broke, and he was being dragged out of it by a rough hand and a face that was no more than a blur. "Leia?"

The face laughed – or someone did, anyway, Han could hardly see – and growled something in a language he didn't understand. Then there was something sharp being pressed against his back, and he took a single step in the direction he was being prodded before collapsing to his hands and knees. Then there was another laugh, and this one Han knew all too well.

"Jabba." He thought he'd said the name, but either his ears or his vocal chords must not have been working, because all that he heard was a ragged gasp of breath. He was thirsty. It seemed like he hadn't had anything to drink in weeks.

"Solo." Jabba laughed again. Han thought that he'd never heard the Hutt so pleased with himself, and that was saying a lot. "He is alive," the low voice rumbled in Huttese, and this Han understood well enough. "I will enjoy seeing how long_ that_ lasts. Take him to his cell."

Han crawled, and even that was agony. Whoever was behind him with the spear laughed again, and above him – _above_ him? – someone began to applaud.

The floor was covered with a fine layer of sand that chafed his hands and blew up into his already parched lungs. Han coughed, and his whole body shook. He was prodded again and again, and the dark blur that was his field of vision flickered red. Someone kicked him – at least, he thought it was a kick – and he rolled onto the stone floor, coughing once more before the darkness claimed him.

* * *

He tried to count the days, at first, making tiny marks on the wall of his cell in the few precious moments each morning after his manacles were removed, and before he was dragged up to Jabba's main audience chamber for what usually amounted to another day of public torture. He was whipped until his back was raw, dragged across the stone floor by his feet, made to perform inappropriate acts on fellow prisoners who weren't even close to humanoid. Not once did Jabba ask about his money – the money that Han owed him, the money that Han now had. It wouldn't have done any good anyway. Han knew Jabba too well, and when he realized that the only thing he was counting were days in which he wasn't lucky enough to have died, he rubbed the marks away and kicked the stone he'd used to make them to the far corner of the cell.

He rarely thought of Leia. He rarely thought of anything. He drank his filthy water every morning like a mongrel dog, surviving because some strange biological imperative wouldn't let him refuse. There was no rest, even in sleep. He coughed up blood and spit his own teeth, but the thought that any of this might be a problem never crossed his mind. Han knew he would die here. He knew it like he knew the suns would come up in the morning, or like he knew that the blaster shots from Jabba's chamber meant there'd be one less pair of hands to do the boss's dirty work in the morning.

What he didn't expect was for the one shot to be followed by another. Then another, and another. He was going crazy, then. Remembering the Death Star, maybe. Remembering Leia. He tried to remember her face, and couldn't.

Why were the shots still going on?

One of the guards ran past his cell door, blaster at the ready, and Han twisted in his shackles, knowing that he couldn't have feed himself even if he'd had his full strength, but suddenly more interested in something than he'd been in… well, however many days it had been since he'd stopped making marks on the wall. Interested. He tried to laugh, and a dry, rasping sound came out instead. Not afraid, not hopeful. There might be a war going on upstairs, and Han Solo was _interested_.

Something heavy hit the floor, and he heard something – footsteps, maybe, but probably not human – thunder from one side of the chamber to the other. He craned his neck – silly, stupid, even if he could have freed himself there weren't any windows in the ceiling. Another explosion, and this one was closer. Down on this level, maybe.

Han craned his neck again, but all that he could see through the cell door was smoke. More smoke. Then a piece of the ceiling fell in.

"Hurry up!" someone called, and Han was sure that he had heard the voice before. "Not this one."

The reply was a roar, and that's when Han knew that he had to be dead, or crazy, or both. "Chewie?" He hadn't spoken in days. "Chewie?" His throat and his lips were raw, but he forced the name out, and was hardly even surprised when he heard another jubilant roar answer him.

"Han!" It was the human voice again, the one he should have known but didn't. "Han, are you in here?"

The cell door rattled, and then there was another explosion. Smoke filled the door, spread into the room, and for a moment Han thought he could see Leia, that the smoke would finally clear and that she would be there, waiting for him.

"Get in here, Chewbacca. He's here! It's Han!"

Then Han remembered, and he shrunk back against the wall. "Get away from me."

Lando didn't hear him, maybe, or didn't care. He was there. The traitor, the bastard, he was there, inches from Han's face.

Han spit, and blood splattered on the stone floor. "You." Hate gave him strength, and he stood as tall as his shackles would allow him. "Get out of my cell."

* * *

**A/N: **_A big thanks to beta reader Luke1! Please check out her current WIP, Burning Bright, as well as other great stories. You can find some of them in my favorites!_

_The other chapters are also being beta-read and slightly revised, thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Artoo squealed as a meteorite hurtled past the X-Wing, barely missing the upper starboard engine as it sped toward the planet below them. Luke pulled the fighter into a tight roll, following the tiny fragment of asteroid as closely as he could. "I'm fine, Artoo," he smiled. "Yes, I can see it. No, I don't want you to take the controls."

He reached out, cautiously at first – he couldn't help but feel the Force, but he hadn't consciously tried to use it since he'd called out to Leia from the underside of Cloud City. His connection to the Force was tainted now, like so many other things, tainted by that dark voice that had called out to him as he lay delirious in what passed for the _Falcon_'s med center. _Son._ He shivered now at the memory. He could feel tendrils of the Dark Side, even here, and he half expected to find Vader waiting for him among the meteorites and debris.

But if Vader knew he was here, he hadn't followed him – not yet, at least. The only thing he sensed in the skies over Hoth was a jumble of rocks and metal. Asteroids, he supposed, and the remnants of the ships they had claimed. He'd run training missions up here with Rogue Squadron, not out in the asteroid belt itself but closer to home, where the meteorites were small enough to make good target practice.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered to himself. "All right, Artoo, give me full throttle." He tightened his grip on the joystick as he edged the fighter closer to its target. Artoo tooted a confused encouragement. Luke didn't expect him to understand why he had to do this. He doubted that any of his human friends would have understood. His target wasn't even alive, but his heart was racing as he brought the piece of asteroid into his sights and, for the first time since what felt like another lifetime, pulled the trigger.

He felt it explode as clearly as he saw it, and his next breath was like releasing himself out into the galaxy, or at least to edges of the system. _There_. He found what he was searching for. It was still there, close enough in the Force that he could almost see it. He drove the X-Wing up, away from the planet before spiraling back down, deliberately skimming the edge of another meteor shower on the way. Artoo wailed. Luke smiled. He was beginning to feel like himself again.

The meteors began to burn as they hit the atmosphere, and Luke watched with a kind of childlike glee, forgetting for a moment the circumstances that had brought him back to Hoth in the first place. They burned with life, he thought, and thought that maybe he was beginning to understand what Yoda had been talking about. _Even between the land… and the ship_. The rocks and the planet were alive. The X-Wing was just an extension of himself. The thought made Luke smile again. He'd never needed the Force to tell him that, anyway.

He entered the atmosphere at a sharp angle, and the ship was tossed roughly to one side as the stabilizers struggled to adjust to the gravity and the winds. Luke pulled hard on the controls, sending the fighter into a roll. "Artoo?" The droid whistled in reply, but whatever he had done only made it worse; the ship was caught in the atmospheric winds, descending too quickly and at an uncomfortable angle. He pulled back as hard as he could, but the joystick barely moved. "Come on!"

The joy he'd felt only moments before was gone, replaced by a strange mix of excitement and fear. It had never felt like this before. He'd always _known_ what he was supposed to do. Even before he'd joined the Rebellion, before he even knew the Force existed, he'd been able to see the wind, to feel it through the cockpit of his skyhopper and just _know_.

_Why can't I feel it now?_

Luke jerked at the controls again, and this time the fighter righted itself – for a moment, anyway. Another blast of wind hit him from side and knocked the joystick from his hand. The X-Wing spun sharply to the right, and it was all that Luke could do to pull himself back into the same cockeyed position he'd been in to begin with.

"Artoo, I need more power!"

Artoo squealed in protest. They were at full power already, and Luke knew it. He could feel the ship straining against the current, knew he had to break out of his current flight path and go…_ there_. He could see his path through the sky as clearly as if it were painted in the clouds. Just like he'd been able to back on Tatooine, and when he flew for the Alliance. Just like always. He could _see _it, but….

A cold panic began to rise in his chest. He clenched the joystick and pulled, but his fingers were slipping. He was so close. He could feel the airstream, feel the X-Wing struggling to break out into fairer skies.

"No," he whispered. He had to do this. He had to!

"Artoo, cut all power to the port engines!"

He was flying more or less straight ahead now – better than being blown further off course, but he was consuming power rapidly and heading further into the snowy wasteland instead of toward the remains of Echo Base. "No." The fear was in his throat now. He could feel it in his voice. "No!"

Then he grabbed the controls with both hands – or would have, except that all that he had left of his right hand was a stump hidden in a thinly-padded flight suit. A jolt of pain shot up his forearm, and Luke gritted his teeth. His concentration was lost. There was nothing but the X-Wing and the joystick and the pain.

But it was working. He had managed to turn the ship – just a little, but it was enough.

Artoo chimed a question, and Luke let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Yeah, Artoo, I'm fine." What was left of his arm throbbed, but he was used to that by now. "Guess I'm a little out of practice, that's all."

They came through the cloud cover into what, on Hoth, probably passed for a light snowfall. Luke had seen worse, but he still shivered a little at the sight of it. "Now we just have to hope the generators are still working. Yes, I'm sure the base is still there."

What remained of Echo Base was half snowed in. Luke knew that some of the ceiling had collapsed, and he'd been there to see most of the exterior defenses blown away, but for some reason he hadn't expected what was left to be hidden under the snowdrifts. He found the hangar easily enough – he'd spent a year of his life running missions out of here, after all. But it wasn't the same place he'd left behind. The place had been abandoned, the blast doors either broken or just left open to the elements, and the docking bay entrance was half the size he remembered, buried under the snow to the point where anything bigger than an X-Wing wouldn't have been able to dock at all.

"There it is. All right, Artoo, I'm lowering the landing gear." The switch was above his head to the right, and he had to strain to reach it with his left hand. "Just a second. Artoo? Can you get it from back there?"

Artoo whistled a negative.

"Okay. No, I've got it," he lied, straining against the harness. "No, not yet." He fell back into the pilot's seat and turned the fighter away from the base in a careful u-turn. _So I can fly but I can't land. Great._

"Are you sure you can't get it, Artoo?"

Another negative. Luke closed his eyes, tried to breathe deeply the way Yoda had taught him, to let the Force tell him what to do. He'd never been very good at this part of the training. It came to him sometimes, when he was flying or shooting or working on his ship, but he'd never really been able to make it come.

He felt the ship around him – that was easy enough. He felt the landing gear. Or did he? He knew the X-Wing's schematics inside and out. Was this seeing through the Force, or just imagining? _Relax._ The connections, running up through the ship, to the motor that would lower them. To the switch that he couldn't reach.

_Use the Force._

Ben's voice, but that was just a memory. Luke shook his head. Remembering Yavin wouldn't help him now.

All right, then. The switch. He pushed against it, gently at first – no, that wasn't right. The whole panel rattled and shook, and Artoo screamed a distant warning. This wasn't like lifting rocks or grabbing his lightsaber – _don't think about that_ – from across the room. He had to focus. It was so small, so precise...

He pushed again, and this time it was right. Harder, firmer – and then he heard the whirr of the motor, and felt the hatches open and the landing gear descend.

"Okay, Artoo. Let's bring her in."

* * *

It was as cold in the hangar as it was outside, and Luke made it his first order of business to find some more appropriate clothing. There were bodies everywhere – frozen, from the looks of them, preserved more or less exactly as they'd been when the base had been abandoned. Luke knew most of the faces, if he couldn't remember all of the names, and while he knew that most of these men would gladly have given him the coats off their backs, he decided to leave Artoo for the time being and venture into the barracks in search of something warmer to wear.

What he found was too big, but it was better than the flightsuit. At least he wasn't going to freeze to death now. There were field rations here too, hard and unpalatable but again, thanks to the climate, preserved well enough. He took what he could carry – not much, but it would do for the night – and headed back into the hangar.

The machines in the pit were dark and lifeless, and Luke doubted if he, crippled and exhausted as he was, could have operated them alone anyway. "You all right up there, Artoo?" he called, and the little astromech's reply was more than a little confused. "It's all right. I can get you down."

It wasn't like he had much choice. He was the one who had decided to come back here, with no real reason or goal. He was the one who'd ignored Leia's advice. Maybe he should have stayed there to rest, to… to do whatever that droid had thought would help him. Maybe he should have gone with her to rescue Han, to rejoin the Alliance and… and do what? Be forced into early retirement? Pitied by people who used to be his friends?

Luke didn't know why, out of all the planets in the galaxy, he'd felt compelled to come back to this one. Maybe it was wishful thinking – Ben had appeared to him here, after all. He had no intention of duplicating those circumstances, but other than Vader himself, Ben was probably the only one who had the answers he was really looking for. Maybe he just needed to prove to himself that he could still survive when all the odds were against him. Maybe he'd just wanted to come to the only planet he knew of where he would be completely and totally alone.

So here he was, alone. And whatever he had thought he was going to accomplish here, alone was the only way to do it.

Artoo whistled impatiently and Luke smiled up at him. "Hang on. You ready?" He took a deep breath, tried to concentrate, but the adrenaline that had carried him though the flight was beginning to fade, and the first things that he really felt were the weakness and fatigue in his own body. He closed his eyes, tried to empty his mind – that, at least, he'd had plenty of practice in. He breathed again, and felt the Force wash over him. His body was lighter, and then not really there at all, or maybe he was just standing outside it, seeing the hangar with new but familiar eyes.

He could hear the echoes of the battle that had been fought here. Not words, really, but feelings. Excitement. Determination. Loyalty. Fear. Pain and loss and resignation, and at the edge of it something else – a sliver of dark and venomous intent that he knew all too well. _Vader_. Vader had been here.

Luke felt his own fear rising. It was weak, but unmistakable. It had been inside his head, and it called to him again now. _No._ It was a ghost. Vader wasn't here. Following that darkness wouldn't give him any answers he didn't already have. He knew why Vader had come here, knew what he must have been looking for.

_No_. He pushed against the darkness, and it retreated. The ghosts drew back into their shadows, and he saw the hangar clearly again, saw Artoo and the ship and the snow-covered floor. He raised his hand – his right hand – and extended his fingers. Artoo rose from his socket, wailing confusion as Luke lowered him as gently as he could to the floor.

He opened his eyes and let go. His knees trembled, and the hand that he'd been able to see so clearly only moments before was aching, and there was nothing he could do stop it. He was sweating, in spite of the cold, and beginning to realize that he hadn't eaten anything since leaving the hospital ship.

"Come on." Luke heard his own voice tremble, and hugged the oversized coat tighter around him. He doubted that that medical droid would have been too happy to see the way his patient had spent his first day out.

* * *

The control room wasn't damaged as badly as the rest of the base. The door on this side had been blasted and stood ajar, but Luke was able to wedge his shoulder into the opening and push it open far enough for Artoo and himself to get through. Inside, very little had been harmed, and it seemed like most of the damage had been done not by Imperial blasters, but by snow and ice falling from the ceiling as the battle had raged on above. He wondered if Leia had been in here at the time, and felt a little pang of regret that he hadn't really listened to much of what she'd had to say back on the _Redemption_.

"All right, Artoo. Can you give me some light?" Luke knelt down to examine what was left of the door controls, but from the outside, at least, it seemed that anything he could have used to close them had been destroyed. Even with the Force and a fur-lined coat, he knew he wasn't going to last very long if he couldn't get the doors closed and the heat turned on. "Looks pretty bad. Do you think you can close it?"

Artoo's reply was uncertain, but he extended his scomp link dutifully and engaged in a lively mechanical discussion with whatever remained of the base computer systems. The answer he finally gave to Luke was doubtful, but at least it wasn't a definite no.

Luke nodded. "All right, give it a try. Use your own power if you have to." He had a portable generator in the ship, which would be enough to keep Artoo going for a few days at least, but unless they could get at least one of the generators up and running, Luke knew that he wouldn't be able to do much else.

The door was apparently fighting him tooth and nail, but after a minute or two of mechanized persuasion, Artoo managed to get it closed. The room seemed warmer almost immediately without the wind from the corridor.

"Good job, Artoo." Luke gave him the same kind of smile he'd been giving Leia every day since Bespin, but empty, exhausted politeness was apparently not an emotion that Artoo had been programmed to detect. "Now," he turned his attention to the main computer with a sigh, "let's see if we can get the power on."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Princess Leia Organa hadn't cried when Darth Vader had tortured her aboard the Death Star. She hadn't cried she'd been forced to watch as Alderaan, the only home she'd ever known, had been obliterated, taking most of her family and friends with it. She hadn't cried for Ben Kenobi, and she hadn't cried for any of the pilots who'd gone down fighting for her helpless cause. She hadn't cried for Han when Vader had encased him in carbonite, and she hadn't cried for herself when she'd been left alone. She hadn't cried, in all of the weeks she'd been waiting with Luke aboard the _Redemption_, waiting for something – anything – to shine a little hope into what was left of her battered little world.

She had cried when her mother died. She had cried, and her father had pulled her aside and told her that she had to be strong. She was the princess, he had said, and the rest of the planet would be looking to her. If she was sad, they would be sad, but if she was brave and strong and hopeful, her people would be too. She had sniffled, and wiped her nose on her sleeve, and nodded. Even then, she had understood. And she had walked back into the throne room with her back straight and her head held high and a proud, determined smile on her face.

She had held back her tears then, and every day since then. Tears of grief, tears of pain, tears of frustration. Tears of relief, and tears of joy – she'd swallowed them all, added them to the quiet burden of responsibility that had been with her for as long as she could remember. Like administrative duties or political ties, emotions were a part of her job: something to be relegated, delegated, and handled with care.

Leia was very good at what she did. She sat in the cockpit of the Alliance shuttle all the way to Tatooine, her hair perfectly coiffed and her face set in a mask of perfect composure. She spoke when she was spoken to, and her answers were well-informed and interested. Even when all she could see was the glow of hyperspace, she kept her eyes forward, and none of the crew could have guessed that what she was seeing at the end of that tunnel was a moment when she could finally crumble, let everything she was carrying fall, and be a woman for a moment instead of a princess.

"Your Highness?"

It was a line she knew well. "Yes, Captain?"

"We're about to switch over to the sublight engines. You might want to strap yourself in."

Leia did as she was told. Her palms were sweating and her neck and shoulders ached, but her ceremonial smile never wavered. She kept her eyes on the stars as they materialized and spun into focus, then faded into the background as the planet swept into view.

"This is Captain Roarke of the _Cluan's Folly_, requesting permission to land."

The communicator spit back a flurry of static in reply, and Roarke glanced expectantly at Leia. It was a false designation, but neither of them had expected any trouble from an out-of-the-way spaceport like Mos Eisley. Roarke cleared his throat and pushed the transmit button again.

"Mos Eisley command, you're breaking up. This is the _Cluan's Folly_, requesting landing permission."

Another burst of static, and then a voice, heavily accented and most likely non-human. "Docking Bay 157."

"One-fifty-seven. Thank you." The captain smiled reassuringly at Leia, and she leaned forward in her seat, showing nothing more than polite appreciation as the hope she had been waiting for swelled bright and white and barren on the forward screen.

* * *

Mos Eisley was by no means a metropolis, but it wasn't exactly the sleepy little town that Luke's stories of his homeworld had led Leia to imagine, either. From above, it appeared that nearly every one of the city's numerous docking bays was occupied, and at ground level the streets were filled with a hodgepodge of people, creatures, and beings that seemed to fall somewhere between. Everyone here was in a hurry, and within minutes of disembarking the shuttle, Leia was nearly run over by an angry-looking man riding a creature she had been fairly sure was extinct.

_We're ready. Rendezvous at Mos Eisley._

That had been Lando's last message to her, and Leia had hoped – had assumed – that he and Han would be waiting for her. Instead, she found herself alone in a strange city, with silence on her comlink and an almost palpable sense of urgency in the air.

A woman hurried past, dragging a small child impatiently by one hand. They were both dressed the way Luke had been when she'd first met him, in dirty tunics and leg wraps that had probably been white when they were new. Leia followed them for a moment with her eyes, trying to imagine what Luke's childhood must have been like here, in this harsh, unfriendly place. The mother glanced over her shoulder at Leia, furrowing her brow in distaste before pulling the child through a doorway and out of sight.

Leia slipped into an alcove on the other side of the street, hoping that here, at least, she would be out of the way. The comlink was a dead weight in her hand. There was nothing from Lando, nothing from her own shuttle. The excitement she'd felt on her approach to the planet was being rapidly replaced by a creeping fear. "Lando?" She called into the comlink again, not really expecting a reply. "Are you there? Chewie?" She didn't dare to ask for Han.

Somewhere behind her, she heard the sounds of a ship taking off. A cloud of sand billowed into the street and the ground shook, causing the building she was standing against to quiver. Another ship rose from the other side of the spaceport; Leia could see this one silhouetted against the light from the twin suns. It was a late-model freighter with parts from what looked like completely unrelated ships tacked on in a configuration that was decidedly unpleasing to the eye. Leia reached for the comlink again, and a third ship took to the sky over her heads, this one followed by the sound of blaster fire.

"Lando?" She couldn't keep the rising fear from her voice anymore. The streets were full of people – rushing, she now realized, away from the center of the city and into whatever safe havens they could find. "Lando! Chewie! Where are you?"

The comlink buzzed and crackled, and Leia had to hold it to her ear to hear the tinny voice that made its way through the interference at last. "Mistress Leia! Mistress Leia! Thank goodness you've arrived!"

"Threepio?" Another ship took off, and Leia had to shout to hear her own voice over the roar. "Threepio, is that you? Where are you?"

She heard a blast – two blasts, really, one on the comlink and the other in the distance, somewhere off to the left. She started running in the direction of the sound. "Oh, my!" Threepio cried into the comlink. "The city is under attack!"

"Threepio! Where's the ship? Where are you?"

"Docking Bay 72. And do hurry! Oh, my!" The ground shook again, and the connection dissolved into static.

Leia moved against the crowd, following the signs toward the lower-numbered docking bays at the center of the spaceport. Every ship in the city seemed to be taking off at once, and the sky was dark with freighters, cruisers, starfighters – every kind of ship she'd ever seen, and some that she strongly suspected were one-of-a-kind hybrids, waiting to make the jump into hyperspace.

By the time she reached seventy-two, the streets were nearly deserted. The people who hadn't taken cover had vacated the city center, and those that were left were huddled into alleys or hiding as well as they could among the junk that seemed to overflow from every crevice of the port city. Only See-Threepio, his golden body gleaming in the light of the twin suns, stood prominently in the middle of the street, waving his arms and shouting her name into the sky.

"Mistress Leia! Mistress Leia! Over here! It's terrible," he moaned. "They've left me all alone."

"What do you mean?" Leia followed him to the Falcon's boarding ramp, but stopped at the bottom. She wasn't sure she wanted to be back on the Falcon yet, not without Han anyway. "Where's Lando?"

Threepio stopped, his head cocked to one side as though he was struggling to comprehend the question. "Didn't he tell you? He and Chewbacca have infiltrated the palace of Jabba the Hutt. Oh, wait, Your Highness! Don't leave me alone out here!"

Leia barely heard him. _The palace of Jabba the Hutt_. The name didn't mean much to her. She wasn't exactly knowledgeable about the galactic underworld, much less out here in the Outer Rim. But she knew Han. She knew that he'd flown against the Death Star, spent the night on the snowfields of Hoth, driven his ship right into an asteroid field and stared into the mask of Darth Vader without so much as a quiver. Han was fearless, or at least closer to it than anyone else she knew. And she knew that he was scared of Jabba the Hutt. Suddenly, she needed to sit down.

"How – how long have they been gone?"

"Several days, I think. To tell the truth, I expected them back much sooner. From what I've heard about this Jabba the Hutt –"

Leia gave him a sharp look. "Thanks, Threepio."

"Oh!" The droid took a step back, apparently offended at having been interrupted. "You're welcome, I think."

"Didn't they take the comlink with them?" She already knew the answer to that, though, didn't she?

"I beg your pardon, your Highness. The ship's computer is trying to communicate with me." Threepio inclined his head in the direction of one of the Falcon's control panels, nodding now and again in response to an electronic conversation that Leia couldn't even hear. "Oh!" He raised his head, his shoulders thrown back in pride. "They're here."

* * *

Leia had half-expected Han to walk through the door and straight to the pilot's seat. It was only the part of her that remembered Bespin, that could still see Luke the way he had been when Lando had pulled him through the top hatch, delirious and defeated, that warned her not to set her hopes too high. He was alive. That was enough.

Lando was up the ramp first, his face set in a grim expression that only hardened further as he nodded to her, taking his seat behind the controls. "Get up here, Chewie!" he yelled. He was hoarse and filthy and bleeding from a cut above his eye.

Chewie roared. Leia had never been able to understand a word he said, but she understood grief when she heard it. It was the same sound she'd heard on Bespin, when she'd thought for the first time that she'd lost Han forever. Now, the same fear exploded through her veins. She was on her feet before she realized what she was doing, running into the corridor just in time to nearly collide with Chewbacca – and Han, who was curled into a near-fetal position against the Wookiee's chest, shivering violently in his arms.

"Han!" she gasped, her voice barely more than a whisper. "What happened to him?" Chewie only moaned. "What did you do to him?"

"What did you do to him?" She directed this last at Lando, who looked up at her and tossed a small, hand-held device across the cockpit in reply.

"You _stunned_ him?"

"I had no choice! He was halfway there anyway." Lando never looked at her, never took his gaze from the controls. "I need you up here, Chewbacca!"

Leia took a deep breath and let the weapon fall to the floor. She would deal with Lando later. Now, she had a role to play. She swallowed her anger, pushed it deep down inside of her with all of the other cracks in her armor. She had to be the princess again, and this time she had to do it for Han.

She found him in the crew quarters, curled stiffly on the bed with a blanket draped haphazardly over his feet and legs. Beside him, Chewbacca stood a silent vigil. Leia stood beside him, close enough that she could feel the tips of his fur against her bare arms, but he didn't move. He didn't even look up.

"We need you up there, Chewie," Leia said in that soft, diplomatic tone that she had wanted so badly to forget. He roared softly, and she rested her hand on his arm. "I'll stay with him." She smiled sadly. "He won't be alone."

The ship rocked and rattled, and Leia could feel the artificial gravity kick in as it started to rise. Han moaned and rolled onto his side.

His clothes were torn and ragged, and when he rolled over she saw that his back was covered with thick red welts. His wrists and ankles were red and raw, and he twisted and turned as though, even stunned, there was no position that didn't pain him. Leia dabbed at his wounds with a wet cloth, and he jerked away from her touch. She bit back the tears. She ran a hand absently through his hair, streaked now with a grey that she didn't remember, and he pulled away as though that, too, hurt him.

She felt rather than heard the roar of the ship's engines as they pulled away from the spaceport, and wondered how many of those other ships were right behind them. A blast rocked the ship from behind, and she dimly heard Threepio exclaim, from the cockpit, "We're doomed!" Chewie roared, and she heard footsteps in the corridor, headed toward the gun wells.

The Falcon fired back – she knew that sound, knew the way it felt to be on this ship in the middle of a battle – and Han looked up, his eyes flickering open at the sound. "Chewie…" he mumbled.

"It's me, Han. It's Leia." She wiped at his brow, but even that made him pull away. "You're back on the _Falcon_. You're safe." Another blast rocked the ship, and she gripped the side of the bed to keep herself from falling on top of him.

Then the ship jerked forward again, and Chewie's roar from the cockpit was one of triumph. "We did it," Leia whispered.

"Not yet." She jumped at the sound of Lando's voice. How long had he been standing there, watching her? "We need you to contact the shuttle, get the coordinates for the jump."

"Right." She nodded, and a strand of hair fell loose, brushing against her cheek. "Han." She looked over her shoulder at him. Another convulsion shook his body and she bit her lip, hard enough that she tasted blood. "I'll be back."

"We'll rendezvous with the Alliance and get Han to a med center." Lando's tone was all business as he made his way back to the cockpit. Leia nearly had to run to keep up with him. "I'm sorry I had to stun him. He wouldn't have come with me otherwise."

"Jabba?"

"Dead. But half the planet was loyal to the old gangster."

"What about those other ships?"

Lando smiled. "Just a couple of favors I called in.

Leia nodded. Lando watched her for a long moment.

"How are you doing?"

Leia bit her lip. She didn't have an answer to that. "Get the shuttle," she said at last.

"_Cluan's Folly_? This is the _Millennium Falcon_. Requesting coordinates for the jump to hyperspace."

Numbers flooded onto the navicomputer screen and beside her, Chewie growled softly in appreciation. "Thank you, Captain." Leia's voice was calm and even. "We'll see you back at base."

* * *

**A/N: **_A big thanks to beta reader Luke1! Please check out her current WIP, Burning Bright, as well as other great stories. You can find some of them in my favorites!_

_The other chapters are also being beta-read and slightly revised, thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!_

_Once again, a big thank you to all of my readers. I hope some of you are enjoying this story as much as I am. This chapter was much more difficult to write than the previous ones. I hope it came out okay._

_This chapter was updated on January 26, 2011, to correct a typo. Nothing else has been changed! Thank you to reviewer William Joseph for catching it for me. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Artoo?"

Luke's breath glowed white in the near darkness. He grasped blindly at the pile of furs and military-issue blankets that had been his bed, and his fingers were so numb that he couldn't tell which it was that he finally grabbed. He pulled whatever it was up to his chest and used his right elbow to prop himself into a half-sitting position.

"Artoo?" He coughed, and the sound echoed in the deserted control room.

Luke reached out with the Force – hesitantly, at first. The wisps of darkness that he'd felt the day before were still there, curling tainted at the peripheral of his senses. _In me. A part of me._ They spread through the room like poisonous veins, branching out into finer, more delicate strands and weaving a black web over the control room, even as the details swam into focus in his mind's eye. The fear, the hatred, the lingering regrets that coursed through even what had been the heart of the Alliance….

Leia had been here, too. It was a strand of light, and Luke forced himself to cling to it, let it illuminate his path as he half-crawled through the maze of rubble to where he'd left Artoo, powered down to conserve what little was left of his energy.

"Come on, Artoo." Luke kneeled next to the droid. His fingers burned as he coaxed them through the startup sequence, and he could feel his right hand burning too, as though in sympathy. "I need some light."

Artoo shone his lamp into the back of the portable heating unit, twisting his dome so that his sensors could get a good look at it as well. Luke peered into the opening, nodding as his fears were confirmed. "Looks like we're out of power. Here, Artoo, hold this open."

The little droid did as he was told, and Luke pried the empty power cell from its compartment, placing it carefully back into the cabinet where he'd found the heating unit the night before. He didn't know if there would be enough power to recharge it later, but after a string of failed attempts to get the main generator back online, he wasn't willing to take any functioning piece of technology for granted.

"It's all right," Luke tried to sound reassuring, for his own sake as much as for Artoo. There was another cell in the case, but only one more, and he had no way of knowing whether or not it was fully charged or how long it would last even if it was. Still, he didn't have a lot of choice at the moment. He plugged it in and let out another icy breath of relief as the heater purred back into life. "If we don't get that generator on, though…." He didn't want to finish the thought. "Do you think you can talk to the computer again? I know," he nodded in response to Artoo's doubtful reply, "but I can't fix the problem if I don't know where it is."

Luke crouched in front of the heater and unwrapped breakfast, one of the same ration bars he'd eaten every day when he'd been flying for the Alliance. It was frozen through, but otherwise no worse for wear, and Luke smiled a little at the memories that the dry, not-quite-flavorless bar brought to the forefront of his mind. Those had been good times. He'd never known from one day to the next if he was going to live or die, but at least things had been simpler then.

He watched the computer terminal as Artoo pulled up one set of schematics after another. As soon as one image took shape, it vanished and was replaced by another at a speed that only a droid could have made any sense of. Finally, the images slowed, and Luke was able to recognize each diagram as an enlarged version of the one before it. Artoo zoomed in, centering in on the problem until at last he stopped on a single image, a maze of connections mapped in green with a single area blinking red.

"Is that it?" Luke stood, turning off the heating unit as he used it for leverage. His toes were still numb, and his feet cried in protest as he limped across the room to get a closer look.

Artoo whistled and enhanced the image again, and Luke traced what should have been the flow of current with his fingers on the screen. "Yeah, I see it. Looks like a short of some kind. Are you sure the computer can't fix it?" There was a pause as Artoo consulted with the computer, and then a low whistle – negative. Luke nodded. It wasn't the best news, but at least they'd located the problem. "All right. I'm going to go take a look at it. Where is this?"

Artoo made the location appear on the monitor. "Thanks, Artoo. No," Luke smiled at the little droid's concern, "I'll be fine. I used to do this kind of repairs on my uncle's farm all the time."

That wasn't quite true, of course. There had been no need for heating units on Tatooine, and while he had done repairs on the vaporators and other farm equipment, he'd always had a couple of droids and the watchful eyes of Uncle Owen looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't blow the whole place sky-high. Not that he hadn't come close a couple of times. Luke tried not to think about that as he made his way across the room, following the emergency lights as well as he could but relying on the Force more than he wanted to admit.

Artoo coerced the blast doors open, and a blinding light poured into the control room. The ceiling here had fallen in, and snow had piled into what was left of the corridor. Luke blinked, and spots swam in front of his eyes. He shook his head. It had been his choice to come here, however poorly thought-out the choice had been, and no one was going to do this for him. He closed his eyes and plunged one already-numb foot into the snow.

His flight suit was soaked and the fur lining of his boots a sodden mess by the time he reached the machine room. He found the panel that would give him access to the problematic circuit easily enough, but it was iced shut, and his fingers only slipped and slid across the surface when he tried to get between the access panel and the frame. He reached for his lightsaber, forgetting again to miss its familiar weight on his hip, and grabbed his blaster instead.

The weapon was heavy in his hand. He hadn't held it like this since Bespin, hadn't fired it since… he couldn't even remember. He turned his head away and raised his right arm to shield his eyes from the blast. His hand – the hand that wasn't there – tingled and burned. Luke bit his lip, closed his eyes, tried to will the pain away as his finger tightened on the trigger.

_No._

He lowered his weapon. It wasn't right. That didn't make any sense – he'd seen the schematic, the problem should be here. But he knew that if he blasted this panel now, he would do more damage than he would be able to fix on his own. It wasn't here.

Luke reached out to touch the panel, barely noticing that the sleeve that brushed against it was empty, that he felt none of the cold of the ice but only the same burning sensation, like his hand had been sucked inside of the machinery and was simultaneously being electrocuted and crushed. He pulled away, watching rather than feeling as his body made its way back down the corridor. He followed the circuits, followed the pulse of the building as it rushed toward its own injury, a cold, empty nothing where signals were being sent, but no power was being returned.

"Luke! What are you doing out here?"

_This is where the problem is_. He thought he'd said the words, but no sound came out. Instead, all he heard was the same voice. The same, impossible voice of a man who had been dead for three years now. _Uncle Owen?_

"I told you not to come out here alone."

Luke looked down at his hands – hands, he had two of them now – and feet. He knew that he was still on Hoth, still plodding down that snow-covered hallway in boots and a fur coat, but he could also see the poncho Aunt Beru had made for him when he was – what? – eleven or twelve, and the long white boots that he'd worn back on Tatooine.

"But this condenser's broken!" This time it was his own voice Luke heard. "I was just trying to fix it."

"There's no problem with the condenser." Uncle Owen sounded angry – but then again, he had always sounded angry. "Get back to the house. Your aunt's looking for you."

Luke remembered this. Vaguely, but he remembered. He'd been playing out in the north range, hiding from his aunt so she couldn't make him help with the chores, when one of the condensers had caught his eye. He had known, somehow, just by looking at the machine, that it was broken. And he knew how to fix it, too. He had thought that his uncle would be proud of him, that he might even let him help out with the farm machines sometimes if he proved that he understood them, that he wasn't just a dumb kid.

"But Uncle Owen, look!" Luke – the young Luke – exclaimed. "This part, this round thing," he had known what he was looking for, but hadn't known the word for it. "It's broken. Just look!"

His uncle looked. Luke could see his face now, could see the way it darkened as he found the part Luke had been talking about, saw that it did, indeed, need to be replaced. "How did you know this?" Accusation punctuated his already gruff voice. "Who told you?"

"N – nobody told me." Luke heard his younger self stutter. He'd been confused, afraid, but the fear that he remembered in himself was nothing compared to that pulsing from his uncle now in great, violent waves.

"How did you know?" Uncle Owen's voice was softer now, and somehow that was worse.

"I just knew," young Luke whispered. "I just… knew."

Luke saw his uncle's face again, saw what his younger self had mistaken for anger swell and grow until it all but swallowed any fatherly feelings Owen had had for his charge. He saw his uncle for the first time as a human being, as a man, and that man was consumed by fear.

_He was afraid of me._

Luke saw himself now as he was, standing alone in the ruins of Echo Base with a fresh snow now beginning to fall on his face and freeze in his hair. And once again, he just _knew._

_He knew._ Luke stepped back, as though the thought had physically hit him. He had known. Uncle Owen had known, and he'd never told him.

"Father."

He whispered the word, not daring to reach out with it any further than the walls of the base around him.

_No._ He had come here for answers, but nothing that the Force could show him would do him any good if he froze to death waiting for it. He closed his eyes and pressed the stump of his arm, buried again in the oversized coat, against the wall. The pain was a blessed relief, drawing his attention from the memory, the vision, whatever it had been, and then fading again to the background as he slipped back into the current of the Force.

It was delicate work, repairing the connections that had been blasted away in the attack. There were only so many wires to work with, half of them damaged beyond repair, and Luke had no idea which systems he was drawing power away from to get the thermostat back online. In the end, he managed to restore power to about half of the systems, prioritizing the connections leading to the control room and the hangar when he could. His concentration was broken at last by Artoo, chirruping in glee as the majority of the control systems came back to life in a cacophony of start-up noises.

* * *

The dreams came again, that night. It had been a long time. He'd dreamed all the time on Dagobah – strange dreams, mostly, full of too many images and feelings to really process at all, much less to make any sense of. Sometimes he'd dreamed of Tatooine, or Yavin, or any of the other places he'd lived along the way, and those were mostly just dreams – the kind that he'd always had, the kind that he imagined everyone else must have, too.

Tonight's dream was the other kind, the bad kind, and Luke woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and clutching his injured arm against his chest. "Father." It was the second time he'd said it aloud today, and this time he wasn't so sure that it went unheard.

He'd dreamed of him. Of Vader, and he hadn't been alone. Luke closed his eyes; the room was dark already, but it seemed that he might be able to shut out the memory. It was there. He was there – that dark, looming presence that was always behind him, no matter which direction he turned. Looking over his shoulder. Waiting for him.

He followed the darkness. He touched it, pressed against it like a child poking at a wound. He was there. _Father._

It was what he had felt on Bespin – not as strong, not at this distance, but there. The evil, the lust for power and the towering, all-encompassing pride that was Vader's very essence. The hunger, the emptiness. The need. It rushed at him again, waves of bitter darkness marbled with something else, something that, coming from Vader, was even worse. Luke pulled away, not wanting to see in his enemy that same desperate longing that had, for many years, made him everything that he was.

"I am not like you!" He growled the words under his breath and clenched his hand into a fist, digging his ragged fingernails into his palm.

The darkness wavered. The hunger faded, and for a moment Luke thought that he'd been victorious. Vader seemed to shrink, eclipsed by a flash of light that was just as quickly replaced by something ancient, enormous, and darker than the darkest greed he had ever sensed in Vader's heart.

He saw himself, reaching for his lightsaber, and this time it was there, it ignited, and he saw Vader's mask illuminated by the blade. The Dark Lord bowed his head, and stepped back into the shadows.

Luke shivered and buried himself further in the pile of blankets. His father, wherever he was, was afraid.

* * *

_**A/N: **Once again, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. Having so much support really encourages me to keep going! I'm going to put author's notes (when I have them) at the end of chapters from now on, to make them less obtrusive._

_I'm sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I've been busy with the holidays and even now, I think it could benefit from being re-edited in the future. My family is still on vacation until January 4th, so don't worry too much if I don't update in the next week or so. Thanks as always for reading, and as always I'm glad to hear your opinions and advice. :)_

_A big thanks to beta reader Luke1! Please check out her current WIP, Burning Bright, as well as other great stories. You can find some of them in my favorites!_

_The other chapters are also being beta-read and slightly revised, thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It took all of the discipline that decades of service and a healthy sense of fear had drilled into him for Admiral Piett to resist the urge to turn his measured military gait into a run. His footsteps echoed in the hallways of the Super Star Destroyer Executor, keeping a beat that failed entirely to keep up with the scramble of orders and directives and maintenance issues in his head. The information on the datapad in his hand was, to Piett, a minor consideration compared to the necessity of its timely delivery. Lord Vader had asked for a status report hours ago, and Lord Vader was not one to be kept waiting.

Piett paused at the door to the Dark Lord's chamber, swallowing back his fear as an uncomfortable memory flashed before his eyes. He had learned his lesson, then, and now made a point of announcing himself before entering.

He was answered with the steady rasp of Vader's mechanical breathing. "What is it, Admiral?"

"My Lord," Piett stepped into the room, bowing his head to the dark, looming visage. "I have obtained the information you requested." He could hear the tension in his own voice, and beads of sweat sprung into being on his brow.

"And?"

Piett consulted the datapad. "It appears that the ship has been modified significantly, at…" he could not keep the distaste from his voice, "unregistered facilities. It will take my men some time to acquire all of the technical details."

Vader was motionless and, except for the monotonous refrain of his breathing, silent. Piett shifted uncomfortably on his feet, remembering all too well how he had obtained the rank of admiral in the first place.

"Time," Vader intoned at last, "is not a luxury that we have, Admiral."

Piett bowed again. "Yes, my Lord."

"You will obtain the information by the time of our arrival at Vanir."

"Vanir?" Piett's face went white.

"That is correct."

"Then the Emperor..?"

On the wall behind them, the holoprojector buzzed and the image of a young officer whom Piett did not recognize sprang to life in the air between them. "Lord Vader," the young man bowed, and Piett nodded appreciatively at his ability to hide the fear that he must surely have been feeling. "The Emperor requests to speak to you immediately."

"Very well." Vader turned his back on Piett and the projection. "Admiral, you are dismissed."

* * *

Darth Vader knelt before the Emperor. His words echoed in the chamber, the same as they had been the day before, the decade before, for as long as either of them cared to remember. "What is thy bidding, my master?"

"You have not yet delivered Skywalker to me." The Emperor stared down at Vader with unblinking yellow eyes. "I am curious as to why."

"In time," Vader's voice was low. "He will be ours."

"His presence is dim."

"I sense him, my master."

"And yet you have not used this newfound… affinity," the Emperor spat the word, "to track him down. I am beginning to wonder, Lord Vader, if your involvement in this matter has not grown too… personal."

Vader looked up at the hologram. "I assure you, it has not."

"Good." The Emperor smiled. "Then you will do as I command. Call to your son. Bring him to me."

"Yes, Master."

"You are wasting my time with this weapon, Lord Vader. Skywalker will be the end of the Rebellion. I have forseen it."

* * *

**A/N: **_A big thanks to beta reader Luke1! Please check out her current WIP, Burning Bright, as well as other great stories. You can find some of them in my favorites!_

_The other chapters are also being beta-read and slightly revised, thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!  
_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

In the time it took him to walk from the briefing room to the main medical bay, See-Threepio had calculated no less than two thousand, five hundred and seventy-one possible outcomes of the treatment that had been given to Captain Solo since his rescue. In two thousand, five hundred, and fifty-four of them, he could have been expected to make a full and complete recovery, and given that the remaining seventeen scenarios involved such unlikely events as the spontaneous combustion of the diagnostic computer and a surprise attack by an Imperial Star Destroyer, Threepio was having trouble figuring out exactly why all of the alarms had gone off at the same time, signaling that, in every way calculable to human science, Captain Solo was dead.

As the door of the medical bay swung open to admit him, Threepio turned his attention to the formulation of an appropriate apology. Princess Leia would be devastated, as would Master Luke, provided he ever returned from wherever it was he had disappeared to. And it was Threepio, after all, who had been given the comlink and left in charge of communicating with the medics while the princess was otherwise occupied. He was fluent in over six million forms of communication and was well versed in the customs and manners of most of the known inhabited worlds in the galaxy, but nothing in Threepio's programming was equipped to give the princess the news that Captain Solo was gone – at least in a way that wouldn't inevitably break her heart.

It was not until Threepio had begun what his programming told him was an appropriate lament at Captain Solo's bedside that his visual input processors managed to override the grieving process. He stopped in mid-eulogy, looked down at what he had supposed to be Solo's corpse, and his wail of grief became one of elation.

It simply made no sense. The universe, it appeared, had seen fit to create a two thousand, five hundred and seventy-second scenario in which, despite the alarms, Captain Solo was not only alive, but awake at last.

* * *

Han couldn't decide which was worse, the light or the sound. Even with his eyes closed, it was too bright in here, and the place – wherever it was – reeked of evergreen and bacta. As if that hadn't been bad enough, whatever machine they'd had him hooked up to had decided to scream in mechanical agony when he'd ripped away the cables that had been holding him down, and only the fact that his mouth felt like someone had stuffed a dry, dirty rag into it was preventing him from yelling back. It hadn't even worked. He was still tangled in whatever it was, and it had taken all of his strength just to throw his hands over his face in a vain attempt to shut out the lights or the noise, if not both.

"Dammit, Chewie," he moaned, thrashing at the wires halfheartedly. "I told you to clean up the… after the…." But he couldn't remember where he was, or what Chewie could have forgotten to clean up. The alarms wailed on, apparently oblivious to the fact that Han Solo had failed to be a threat to anyone but himself a long time ago.

He heard footsteps, the sound of a door opening and closing again as someone entered the room. Han tried to open his eyes, not sure at first if he'd actually succeeded. The room was full of spots, a blur of brown and grey, and then he flinched as everything was obscured by a blinding flash of gold. His mind didn't even try to make sense of it. He closed his eyes again and turned his face away, unsuccessfully willing the rest of his body to follow.

"Captain Solo!"

Han started. They knew his name, then. That seemed like it should mean something. He tried to follow that trail of thought, but his captor was babbling on about something and his thoughts kept slipping away as soon as they'd started to take shape. He'd been here before, in the dark, and there'd been a face through the smoke, and it had been a face that he knew.

"Do I know you?" His tongue was dry and felt like it was twice its normal size; it came out sounding more like "Di nowwu?"

There was a moment of hesitation, and then the voice cried out again, "Captain Solo! You're alive! Thank the Maker!"

"Threepio?" That didn't make sense. Han wasn't exactly sure why it didn't make sense, but he knew that, whatever straws of memory he'd been grasping at, Threepio had most definitely not been a part of them.

"Yes!" The tinny voice was ready to explode with euphoria, and Han didn't think he had the stomach for it right now. Giving up on his eyes for the moment, he forced himself to stare into the light while he pressed both hands firmly against his ears.

"I'm here!" The gesture was apparently lost on Threepio, who continued to jubilate in a voice that, although muffled, was still perfectly audible. "Princess Leia will be most eager to hear of your recovery. She's been quite worried."

"Leia?" Han coughed. How long had it been since he'd had anything to drink? "Where is she?"

"Oh." Threepio cocked his head, managing to catch another beam of light and reflect it directly into Han's eyes. "I'd forgotten to get her on the comlink."

"Wait…" Han began, but it was too late. Threepio had turned his attention to the device he'd been holding in one of his blindingly polished hands, and failed to hear Han's next question. "Where am I?"

"Mistress Leia. Mistress Leia." A note of worry had begun to creep into Threepio's voice. "I'm sorry, but she isn't answering."

"The princess is in the command center." Han heard the door open, and a second set of footsteps entered the room. He tried to sit up, to see who it was, but a firm hand on his chest pinned him down.

"Take it easy, Captain." Han thought he recognized the voice, but the man's face was backlit and it was impossible to make out his features. "We're glad to have you back with us."

Han squinted, trying to figure out where he'd heard that voice before. None of this made sense. He'd been expecting someone else, even if he couldn't remember exactly who that someone else was supposed to be. "Who are you?"

The man laughed. "Ord Mantell ring any bells?"

The man pressed something cold against his chest, and Han jumped. "You're with the Alliance." It was the best he could do, and he made a mental note to apologize to the man later, if and when he managed to remember his name.

"That's right – hold still. And so are you."

"Where am I?"

"Not so fast." The man – he was a medic, Han supposed, although he didn't think that was how they'd known each other on Ord Mantell – gathered the pile of wires and cables from the bed and finally, mercifully, switched off the alarm. "The General wants to fill you in himself, when you're feeling up to it.

Han sat up. "I'm fine. I –" His vision erupted into a field of spots, and he lowered himself slowly back to the bed. "Tell him I'm ready whenever he is. And, uh… do you think I could get something to drink?"

It was Threepio who brought him a glass of what he supposed was water. It tasted like the room smelled – like it came from a tree. Han wrinkled his nose, but he choked it down, and when he spoke again his voice sounded more like itself again.

"What is this place?"

His vision was more or less back to normal. The lights were still painfully bright, but Han wasn't quite sure if that was because of whatever had made him feel like this, or just because whoever had built this place had thought it was a good idea to fill the ceiling with twice as many light fixtures as any other room of this size would have required.

The walls were made of some sort of knobby wood, and when he sat up again Han could see that they were interspersed with ancient viewscreens and input devices, half of which had begun to rust in their sockets and none of which seemed to be functional. The medical monitor that he'd been hooked up to was a portable model, and clearly hadn't been a part of the place's original design. A lot of this stuff probably dated back to the Clone Wars. If it hadn't been for the watchful eyes of the medic – that, and the fact that his head still seemed to weigh more than the rest of his body put together – Han figured he could have gotten at least one of those terminals off the wall and pulled it apart to see if there was anything he could salvage for the _Falcon_. As it was, he was going to have to settle for whatever information Threepio had to share.

"I'm afraid," the droid began slowly, as though he was choosing each word with care, "that I'm not quite sure. At the moment, this room is being used as a medical bay, although if you are inquiring about it's original function –"

"Yeah, okay." Han pressed his index and middle fingers against his temple, holding up his other hand in a sign of surrender. "Look, Threepio, if you could just find someone to get me out of here…"

The door opened again, and Han lifted his head – too fast, spots swam in front of his eyes again, but they were too late. He could see her again, through the smoke, and she was beautiful.

"Han."

"Leia." He said her name, and recoiled. He saw her, and he remembered. All of the images that he had been grasping at suddenly laid themselves out in a clear path that he had no choice but to follow. Cloud City. The carbon freezing chamber. Jabba's palace. He flinched, shifting his position to accommodate wounds that only minutes before had seemed healed and forgotten. He remembered it all, and then there was another name on his lips, spoken before he had a chance to repress it.

"Lando."

"He's here." Leia stepped closer. Her face was set in an expression of mild concern that to Han seemed completely out of place in the context of her comment. Lando was _here_?

"No."

"If you don't mind me saying so, sir –" Threepio interjected.

Han pressed his fingers against his temple again. "Actually, yes, I do mind, Threepio."

"Threepio," Leia interrupted. She sounded so calm – how could she be so calm? "Can you take this down to Chewbacca in the hangar?" She pressed a datapad into his hands.

"Well, of course I can, Your Highness! Although, may I suggest that it may be much faster to – "

"It's important, Threepio," she pressed. "Thank you."

She smiled at Han as the door swung shut, and Han couldn't help but smile a little in return. "Chewie's not in the hangar, is he?"

"No."

Han didn't know what to say. "He's here, though? He's okay?" There was another memory – a roar of triumph, and then the stale, comfortable smell of unwashed Wookiee that had meant, even with the world falling apart around him, that he was home.

Leia nodded. "Chewie's fine."

"I don't understand." Leia was standing at his bedside now, so close that she could have reached out and touched him at any time. Han shrunk away. "Where are we? How did I get here?"

She took a step back, withdrawing the hand that she had been about to place on his shoulder. "This is where we moved the fleet. After Hoth." She glanced at the medic, who looked back down at his work, apparently willing to ignore the fact that she had given Han that tiny piece of non-information. "General Rieekan wants to talk to you himself."

"Okay, so where is he?" Han hadn't meant to sound so confrontational, but it was beginning to seem like no one had anything to offer other than that same short-circuited recording to play back, no matter what questions he asked. "Where's Chewie? Where's Luke?"

Leia bit her lip and her gaze fell to the floor.

"What?" Han watched her, his heart pounding faster as something that he would describe as a distinctively bad feeling crept over him. "Where's Luke? What happened?"

"Luke's fine." Leia shook her head, but she still wouldn't look him in the face.

"Then why are you –"

"He's alive." She met his gaze, and her expression clearly begged him not to ask any more. "He's fine. Let me… let me see if I can get the general on the comlink."

"There'll be no need, Your Highness." Han heard the door open again, and this time it was not only General Rieekan, but also General Dodonna who entered. Han lowered his head in the closest approximation of a bow he could manage in his current position, and Dodonna nodded curtly in reply.

"Welcome back, Captain." It was Rieekan who spoke this time, and if his tone of voice was welcoming, his mouth remained set in a grim line. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll survive. Where am I?"

"Dardovan Four."

Han furrowed his brow. "Piloan Sector. That close to the Galactic Core?"

Rieekan nodded. "It's a risk, but this facility was abandoned decades ago. It's our hope that the Empire will have forgotten it even existed. Your friend Calrissian tells us that the Empire has taken over his facility on Bespin. The Outer Rim is no longer a safe haven, for us or for anyone."

Han was barely listening. "Don't trust him, general." He heard the anger in his voice and didn't especially feel the need to suppress it. "He turned us over to Vader. He'll do the same to you."

"We have every reason to believe that Calrissian's loyalty is genuine." General Dodonna glanced at Leia as he spoke. "He has lost everything, as have we all."

"We need him, Han." Leia shook her head. "We lost so much on Hoth. He's offered us money and equipment and…"

"And what?" Something in Han snapped, and he grabbed her roughly, pulling her close. "Don't tell me you've fallen under the old Calrissian charm?"

"No." She pulled away, rubbing her arm where he'd held her but keeping her expression cold. "That's not it and you know it. He saved you, Han."

"Well, I wouldn't have needed saving in the first place if it wasn't for him!"

No one seemed willing to argue with that. It was Dodonna who broke the silence first, and to Han's surprise it was Leia to whom he addressed his next question. "Have you had any word from Commander Skywalker?"

Han's ears pricked up again, and he watched Leia's face intently as she directed her attention to the floor. Something was wrong here.

"Not yet, General."

"And you have no means of making contact with him?"

"What happened to Luke?" Han interjected. "Where is he?"

General Dodonna gave him a sympathetic nod. "Commander Skywalker was injured on Bespin and has been on medical leave ever since. I would like very much to talk to him" – he directed this last to Leia – "at least. He's one of the best pilots we've ever had. I'd hate to lose him permanently"

"Wait a minute." Han shook his head. "Luke was on Bespin?" That made sense. A piece of the puzzle that almost fit. Vader had been looking for him, but if Vader had found him…. The bad feeling had multiplied by a degree that not even Threepio could have calculated. If Vader had found him, there was no way that the kid could have escaped alive.

Leia bit her lip and nodded. "General, I'll inform you immediately if there's any word."

"Princess Leia," Rieekan smiled warmly. "If you hear from Luke, let him know that there will always be a place for him here."

Leia squinted at him, almost as if she were looking for something in the general's face. "You know," she said at last.

Dodonna passed her the datapad he'd been carrying. "Commander Skywalker was treated on an Alliance ship, Your Highness. We are fully aware of the nature of his injuries."

"And you gave him a ship anyway?"

Han glanced frantically from Leia to the generals and back again. This didn't make sense. Luke was a pilot. He was one of the best pilots the Alliance had – aside from Han himself, of course. Why wouldn't he have access to any ship he wanted? What could be so bad that Leia had apparently tried to hide it from Alliance High Command?

"Your Highness," Dodonna replied with a smile. "Luke Skywalker is, quite possibly, the most naturally gifted pilot I've ever seen. If he thinks he's ready to return to service, then I for one am inclined to believe him."

"Captain Solo?" Rieekan turned to face him. "Can I consider your resignation rescinded?"

"What?" Han had almost forgotten that he'd tried to resign before they left Hoth, and at the moment he was too worried about Luke to even try to recall the details.

"Your resignation. With Jabba the Hutt dead, the price on your head is no longer a concern. We'd like you to stay with us."

"Umm… can I… can I get back to you on that one, General?" Han's head was starting to hurt again. "I think I need to lie down."

"Of course." Rieekan shared a glance with Dodonna, and Han could only guess at what they must have had to say about him to each other before coming here. "When you're feeling up to it, Princess Leia will show you around the base."

"Great." Han collapsed onto the bed, and was immediately greeted by the infernal blaze of the celing. "Who designed this place, anyway?"

He wasn't expecting an answer, and didn't get one. The generals said their goodbyes, and the medic, whom Han had almost forgotten about, joined them as they left, leaving him alone with Leia. He closed his eyes, hoping for a minute that she would follow them and leave him alone. In the end, concern got the best of him and he rolled onto his side. She was sitting at his bedside, her chin resting on her hands and her mouth set in a thin line.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. Everything. I don't know."

He thought that he should touch her, should hold her, should tell her that everything was going to be all right. He almost reached out for her. He could almost see his fingers reaching out and touching the smooth, perfect skin of her cheek. And then he could feel the heel of the guard's boot, grinding down on his fingers, could feel the whip across his back and the sizzling brand being pressed against his chest. Everything that had been done to him since Bespin came back in a single, horrifying rush, and he pulled his hand back, wanting nothing more than to run to the _Falcon_ and put up all the shields and never touch another human being as long as he lived.

Except that his best friend was out there, injured and alone, and Han had the sinking suspicion that this time, it might just be at least partly his fault.

"Luke came after me."

"After us."

"He faced Vader."

Leia nodded. "Here." She held out the datapad and Han took it, careful not to let his fingers brush hers.

He squinted at the screen, relieved at first to see that the blurry lines of double letters still made words, if he looked at them hard enough. Then the words became sentences, and the sentences became a report. He read the whole thing twice, sure that he must have misunderstood it the first time.

"No." Han shook his head. This wasn't right. Luke was a pilot. Luke was going to be a Jedi. He sat up. He stood up. His head swam and his legs were jelly, but he didn't care. "You let him fly out of there alone?"

"What choice did I have?" Leia stood now too, and what she lacked in height she made up for in a strength, both physical and emotional, that he was unable to match. "Luke's an adult, Han! Let him make his own choices. He let you make yours."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Leia turned on the ball of her foot and began to walk away at a speed that Han couldn't hope to match.

"Wait!" He shuffled after her, leaning against the bed and then the wall for support. "Leia…" There was no way she could have heard him. He could barely hear himself.

He followed her out into the corridor, but she was already gone. He could feel his heart beating, feel his skin chafing against his ribs with each heavy, agonizing breath. "Vader." The word was dry and acrid on his cracked lips, and with it he felt a surge of hatred pulse through his veins. He balled his hands into fists and slumped to the ground, looking up at that infernal ceiling and seeing nothing but red.

* * *

**A/N: **_Special thanks to beta reader Luke1. You can find her current WIP, Burning Bright, and other amazing stories in my favorites._

_A new version of this chapter was posted on March 11, 2011. Some typos and grammatical errors were corrected, but the actual contents haven't changed. I apologize for the lack of updates lately, but please rest assured that I am still writing (I'm actually up to Chapter 14 now, as far as rough drafts go), and the new chapters will be posted as soon as they're edited and polished. Thank you for your patience.  
_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Another blizzard was brewing. Luke could feel it, both through the Force and through a persistent ache in his injured arm, but he was too far into his training regimen to care. Snow clung to his hair and to the fur trim of his coat, turning to icicles that, in turn, froze to his face and obscured the view through his goggles, but Luke was only dimly aware of this as he ran.

He cut a strange figure, a human form running through the snow – _over_ the snow – with the agility of a tauntaun, apparently unhindered by either the storm or the bulk of his clothes. To Luke, however, it felt more natural to skim over the snow than it would have been to plow through it. A string of days and nights on Hoth had finally turned into a pattern, a rhythm something like what he'd had back on Dagobah. The terrain was different here, of course, and he had to be careful not to forget entirely about the needs of his physical body in the sub-zero climate, but the basic concept was the same. He felt the cold only remotely, knew the ache in his long-unused muscles as nothing more than a red flash on a distant radar. The Force was what carried him, with no specific goal or time limit, just the endless map of being that unfolded before him, growing wider and more detailed with every passing day.

Even in the snowy wasteland, he had found, the Force had a story to tell. There was the movement of the clouds, the swirl of the winds and shifting patterns of snow that reminded him oddly of the sand on Tatooine. There were the primal cravings of the native fauna: hunger and aggression and animal lust, dark urges painted brighter by the raw tribal love that pulsed beneath. The echoes of the battle were here too, and beyond that, fainter whispers of a human presence that stretched even further back – the original explorers that had discovered this place, maybe, or some other band of outlaws from another long-forgotten conflict. When the Alliance had first arrived on Hoth, Luke had been surprised that there could be a place in the galaxy more desolate than his own homeworld. Now it was alive in the Force, and a part of him wished that he could just run, and be, and observe it forever.

Practically, of course, that wasn't an option, and Luke was already on his way back to the base when the thought occurred to him. He was hungry and cold; the Force could help make those feelings bearable but it couldn't produce food and electricity out of thin air. He'd given Artoo a job to do that, with any luck, the little droid would be making progress on, and his self-imposed training regimen wasn't finished yet.

The hangar doors were still open. Artoo had given them a cursory inspection on their second day here, but it hadn't taken much in the way of diagnostics to determine that they were beyond any kind of repair that a single man and an astrodroid could perform on their own. There'd been no choice but to leave the ship exposed to the elements, and that was another time limit hanging over his head. Luke performed as much routine maintenance on the X-wing as he could, but there were already patches of corrosion on the hull, and he hadn't figured out a way yet to stop the forces of nature.

He was breathing hard. The cold air burned his throat and lungs, and as he drew back into himself, the weight of his body became a burden. He thought he was beginning to understand, at last, what Yoda had meant about luminous beings. He focused his energy into his feet and legs, and in a concentrated balance of physical and Force energy, leapt onto the X-wing's starboard S-foil with outstretched arms.

The ship rocked under his feet, and Luke stumbled. This kind of Force-assisted jump was something he'd practiced a thousand times; it had likely saved his life on Bespin. But he wasn't used to finding his balance with two arms that were no longer the same length or weight, and he found himself on his knees, bracing himself with his gloved hand on the upper starboard engine.

His knees were shaking. It was nothing, he told himself. He hadn't fallen, hadn't even come close, and he would have been able to soften the fall if he had. That wasn't the problem, though, and he knew it. It had been a reminder, and there had been far too many of those – too many reminders that he would never be a match for Vader when it came to size or strength, that it would take more time than he had, not to mention a weapon to practice with, to match his proficiency with a lightsaber. He was continuing the Jedi training as well as he could, but for every breathtaking moment of peace that he found in the Force, there were hours in which all he could see was the vast darkness of the universe and himself, nothing more than a speck on the side of a ball of ice, teetering at the edge and about to fall off.

He pulled the glove off with his teeth and pressed his bare hand against the cockpit window. It stung with the cold, but Luke gritted his teeth and kept it there, watching as his body heat melted the frost. Trickles of water ran down the window, down the side of the fighter, probably freezing again when they hit the floor. Luke watched them intently, focusing on the frost, and then on the cockpit, and then on the wires and circuits that lay within. He picked one at random and followed it to its destination, then back up to the cockpit, the diagnostic computer, and the alarm that would sound if there was anything wrong. This wasn't really a part of the training, but Luke had found that exploring the electronic workings of the ship, the base itself, and just about anything else that the Alliance had left behind had just about the same effect as taking apart his uncle's farm equipment had had – even if he was ten years older now, and only doing it through the eyes of the Force.

When his mind was clear and his body had stopped trembling, Luke opened the cockpit and climbed inside. He had no intention of going anywhere, especially without Artoo, but being around machinery calmed him, and there was nothing – except possibly a T-16 skyhopper – that was more comfortable and familiar to him than the cockpit of an X-wing.

His reflection stared back at him from the front glass, and it was a face that he didn't recognize. A layer of stubble covered his chin and cheeks, coming in unevenly where the scars from his last adventure in the wilds of Hoth had never fully healed. His hair was longer than it had ever been, straggling unevenly into his eyes, and those eyes didn't look the same either, although it was hard to tell exactly what about them had changed. "Hey, Han," he spoke aloud as he initiated the part of the startup sequence that would turn on the heat, "I guess you can't call me 'kid' anymore, huh?"

He'd meant it as a joke, but as soon as he heard his own words, Luke wished he hadn't said them. It didn't seem likely that Han would call him "kid," or anything else, ever again, and the sense of loss that accompanied the thought was overwhelming. Luke closed his eyes and sank back into the pilot's seat. _Han_.

Han was alive, he knew that much. He was there every time Luke touched the Force, there at the fringes of his perception with Leia, with Master Yoda, with all of the people Luke had loved and left behind. They were bound by something too strong to simply tune out, but Luke had refused to follow those connections, to _look_ rather than to see. And so he knew only that Han was alive, and that his presence grew stronger every day.

He'd come here to meditate – not that it ever helped. The Force showed him what it wanted to, when it wanted to, and neither Yoda nor Ben had ever really taught him how to control it.

Now, he saw a hangar bay. Not here, not on Hoth, but in a place that was warm. Bright. Clean. He saw the _Millennium Falcon_. There were people here, lots of people. Friends. There was safety here, but also sorrow. Too many holes in the fabric of their camaraderie; too many lights that had gone dark too soon.

And there was Han, up to his elbows in grease with a tool in each hand and sweat beading on his brow. There was nothing wrong with the Falcon, for once; Luke knew that because Han did. He knew his friend too well. There was something broken in the world, and this was the only way Han knew to fix things.

_Han?_ A rush of guilt swept over him, and Luke wasn't sure if it came from the Force or from his own conscience. _Han, can you hear me?_

Whatever hit him next, hit him hard. Luke flew backwards, hitting his head against the seatback as though he'd hit the brakes too hard. He could see the pattern of his own heartbeats in the spots that clouded his vision. Han was gone, the sounds of the bustling hangar replaced by the quiet rumble of the X-wing's engines and the wind whistling through the ruined base.

Luke closed his eyes again, retraced the connection, but he didn't find anything that hadn't been there before. He sighed. It had been stupid, really, to think that it would work, that Han would hear him. For all he knew, that trick only worked when you were about to die.

_Or maybe only when the other person is listening._ Luke shook his head. It didn't matter. Luke was the one who had left – for the sake of his friends, he told himself. If Vader was looking for him, it was better that he found him alone. He wasn't exactly sure that that was the logic that had driven him here in the first place, but it made sense. If Han wanted to hate him for it, that was fine.

_So this is what it's like to be a Jedi. Ben…_ He looked up, his eyes still closed, reaching out into space for the one loved one who never came to him here, even as a dream or a whisper or a shadow in the corner of his eye. _Ben. You never told me it was so lonely._

There was no answer, of course. There was never any answer, but Luke still called out, as he did every day. _Ben._ He reached out, and found nothing.

His mind was clear. Ben had given him that, at least, in his absence.

And then it was his dream, all over again. He had the same dream, every night since he'd been here – except that it hadn't been a dream the first time, and it wasn't a dream now. Vader was watching him, waiting for him. Luke felt his longing and ached with it. It was an ache he knew all too well.

He saw Han again, this time through a fog that wrapped around the foot of a craggy mountain. He was climbing. He was tired; he had been climbing for a long time, and was nearing the end of the fog. Han looked up, and whatever was waiting for him at the top of the mountain made him shudder.

Vader was at the top of the mountain. Luke couldn't see him, but he _knew_. Vader was there, and Han was climbing toward him.

_He's not the one you want._

And then he was there, in the fog. Luke, or Luke-as-Han – he wasn't entirely sure – made his way up the side of the rock face. It was slippery, and hard to see, but it didn't really matter. He would die here, or die at the top. Life was no longer a viable option.

Vader was alone. He had never been alone before, in the dreams. The Emperor was gone… no, not gone but somewhere far away, and Vader stood alone at a window through which he could see a full moon at midday, and another, partially eclipsed behind it.

_My son._ Luke shuddered at the sound of that voice, echoing in his head. _Come to me. The Emperor cannot touch us here._

The fog was below him now. Luke felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and Vader was with him. Around him. In him. Filling the cracks, making him whole. _Only I can complete your training._

Luke reached for his lightsaber; he had lost it on Bespin but in his dreams it was there, it was always there. But it wasn't there now.

_Take your weapon._ Vader held out his hand. It was empty, but Luke saw himself reach for it anyway. He knew his lightsaber, knew its weight and its circumference and the cool of the metal against his palm. He took it from Vader. He felt it, and even though he couldn't see it, he knew that this was no deception. The lightsaber was real, and it was his.

It was the hand holding it that was not.

He watched the robotic fingers, black and skinless, grasp the air and hold it. An electric tingle ran up his arm, uncomfortable but not painful, and he couldn't tell if it was a part of reality or of the dream. He heard the blade ignite before he saw it, a beam of fiery ice reflected in the dark eyes of Vader's helmet. Vader stepped back, as he had before. He would not draw his own blade.

_Father._ He saw himself advance; Vader retreated. Luke tried to call out, tried to tell himself to stop, but the other Luke – the dream-Luke – wasn't interested. The Force surged electric through him. He raised his blade, and in a single fluid motion brought it down. It carved an icy crescent in the darkness of the cavern, and Vader watched, amused, as it connected with absolutely nothing.

Another step forward, and the lightsaber was gone. There was only Luke, watching the moons rise through the window as he watched the snow swirl into what was left of Echo Base. Vader was with him, and Luke knew that he saw it too. He knew where Luke was. Maybe he had always known.

Luke looked down at the mechanical hand – his mechanical hand. The fingers moved when he moved them, and he felt them when they brushed against the palm. Tiny components mimicked the fine motions of muscle and bone with a fluidity that was almost human. Luke had never seen or heard of such a thing. The mechanic in him marveled at the construction, even as a part of him was repulsed at the thought that he _was_ the machine, that the machine was him.

_Why are you showing me this?_

There was no reply. Vader was gone, and Luke felt himself shrinking, falling away as the galaxy, the planet, even the ship around him swallowed him whole. He looked up, looked out through the cockpit window and all that he could see was the endless expanse of snow and sky. He looked down at the X-wing's controls, where his left hand rested, where his right hand should have been. He was tiny. Powerless. Insignificant. Human, for what it was worth.

He fell back into the pilot's seat with a sigh. _And probably going crazy, on top of it._

Something was buzzing. It took Luke a moment to figure out that it was a real sound, and not just something else in his head. It took him another moment to figure out that it was the comlink, and what seemed like a very long string of moments to fish it out of his pocket and answer it.

"Artoo?"

The little droid was upset, and Luke didn't need to understand every word of his mechanical rant to know why. "I know," he apologized. "I'm sorry. No," he shook his head, feeling a little like a kid who'd been caught messing around with things he wasn't supposed to. "Nothing's wrong. I've been working on the ship."

Artoo cooed. Luke didn't know whether R2 units were programmed to know when their masters were lying, but he got the impression that this particular R2 unit, at least, hadn't been fooled at all. The comlink fell silent, and again he felt like he'd been caught, and was now having to explain to Aunt Beru why he'd had his hands in the cookie jar an hour before dinner.

"I'll be right there," he promised. He cut the ship's power and opened the top hatch, leaping over the side of the ship and – to his surprise and relief – landing only a little shakily on the icy hangar floor.

Judging from the state of the computer consoles, Luke guessed that Artoo's mission had, at the very least, been more of a success than his own had. Every screen in the command center was alive with names and dates and figures and schematics, what was left of the old Alliance archives scrolling up and away and off the screen at a speed that human eyes couldn't begin to comprehend. Luke was speechless. He'd been hoping that Artoo would be able to get something out of the mess that the Empire had made of the computer system, but he hadn't dared to think that there'd be anything like this left behind.

Artoo looked up at him expectantly. The red lights on his dome faded to a cool blue, and he gave Luke a soft whistle that, despite the little astromech's best efforts, came out sounding more proud than annoyed.

Luke nodded. "Good job, Artoo. Let's see what we've got." He knelt beside the droid, trying to ignore the itching in the absent fingers of his right hand as Artoo extended his scomp link to interface with the computer.

"No," Luke shook his head at the first page of information. "I don't need information on the fleet."

Artoo gave a disappointed peep, and Luke smiled down at him apologetically. He hadn't really thought about Artoo's feelings – hadn't though about them at all, really – but he knew that he was probably missing Threepio just as much as Luke missed Han and Leia. He didn't say anything; he had no intention of returning to the Alliance himself and knew that he couldn't make any guarantees, but he made a silent promise to let Artoo go back, to be with Threepio again if he ever had the chance.

"See if you can find anything in the weapons archive."

The screen changed, and information on the base's defensive systems flooded onto every terminal in the room. There was a lot of technical information here, most of it obsolete or at least invalid after the Imperal attack. The base was warm enough now, and livable, but Luke didn't think there were enough armaments left here to defend against a herd of rabid tauntauns, much less an assault by an actual enemy. He shook his head. "It wouldn't be here. Is there any information on historical weapons? I'm looking for..." he hesitated. "I'm looking for information about lightsabers."

Artoo's lights flickered from blue to red and back again, and he whistled in concern. Not for the first time, Luke wondered exactly how much his little friend understood about what had happened to him on Bespin. "I can't face him without a weapon," he rationalized.

Artoo let out a low whine, but he did as he was told. The schematics vanished from the screen and were replaced by a short text file accompanied by a single image, remarkable only in its lack of technical details.

"That's it?" Luke read the short description over and over again. It didn't take very long. He probably could have written something more useful off the top of his head. "A weapon used by the extinct order of Jedi Knights, rumored to be able to cut through most substances…" Luke shook his head. He hadn't expected much, wouldn't have been surprised to find nothing at all, but this was the only idea he'd had. If the Jedi were extinct, what had happened to their weapons?

"It was my father's." The last word caught in his throat, and he tried not to think about what that implied. His hand was burning again. He closed his eyes, clenching and unclenching both fists in unison. Sometimes that helped, but now all he could think of was his vision, and the robotic hand that had wielded his lightsaber as though it were a part of him – no, it _had_ been a part of him.

Luke opened his eyes. Artoo was still plugged into the computer, watching him expectantly. The cartoonish rendering of a lightsaber still blazed on the main screen.

"Artoo?"

The droid gave a quiet whistle.

"Are any of the medical records intact?"

Affirmative.

"All right. See what you can find about…." He lowered his voice, uncomfortable with the idea – the impossible hope – that was growing in his semi-conscious mind, "See what you can find about prosthetics."

There was a lot of information. Too much, Luke thought – and none of it what he was looking for. There had been quite a few cases of fingers and toes lost to frostbite, and a few more serious injuries resulting from equipment malfunction or encounters with the local wildlife. Most of those people hadn't even been fitted with prosthetics. They either returned to duty or they didn't, and the files ended there. One name caught Luke's attention, though. It was a pilot, a young kid really, who'd joined up right after Yavin and gone down almost immediately in a training mission. He remembered it; there'd been a big fuss, and his commanding officer had been called in for questioning. In the end, nothing had happened. They'd given the kid a new leg and sent him home, and no one had really talked about it, just like no one really talked about Biggs or Dak or anyone else who they'd lost along the way.

He asked Artoo to pause the frame, and took a good look at the kid's record. Luke didn't know a lot about this particular technology, but it was pretty obvious that what he was looking at was nothing close to his vision… or whatever it had been. That crash had been a big deal, and he had the feeling that if anything better had been available, the Alliance would have done what it could to provide it. So this was it. Model AK-286, from the Archoi Medical Supply Company on Kurakae.

Kurakae. Luke mouthed the name silently to himself. He had heard that name before. "Artoo?" he asked. "Do you know anything about this planet? Kurakae?"

Negative. So it wasn't a part of the Alliance. He'd spent hours as a kid memorizing the names and locations of all the major shipyards in the galaxy, and it wasn't one of those worlds either. _So where…? _

_Tell you what, kid. You ever want to ditch that piece of junk and get yourself a real weapon, I know the place._

Han. That's where he'd heard it. He couldn't remember where they'd been on their way to, or why he hadn't been in his own X-wing, but it had most definitely been a late night on the _Falcon_. Han had been drinking. Someone had found an old blaster – a real piece of junk, Luke thought with a smile, something that Han had picked up somewhere and left on his ship, "just in case."

_You see this? This here's an antique. They don't make 'em like this anymore. And the people that got 'em, they won't sell 'em, 'less it's for a price. There's this guy, out on Kurakae… he'll set you up with something real nice, make you forget all this Jedi stuff in a hurry._

"A weapons dealer. Artoo, how far is it?"

The file for Kurakae was about as extensive as the one on lightsabers, and once Luke had read it through, he understood why the Alliance hadn't bothered to keep records of it. There appeared to be no military value to the system at all. It was listed as neutral, and was far enough out of the way that the Empire wouldn't have much to gain by conquering it. Its major industries were electronics manufacturing, tourism, and gambling – an odd combination, but it explained why Han had heard of the place. It wasn't close, but it was well within the range of the X-wing's hyperdrive.

It was a hunch. Or a coincidence. Master Yoda would have told him to stay. But this wasn't Bespin, and whether or not the Force had anything to do with the idea he had now, Luke knew that this time, this wasn't what Vader wanted. He couldn't avoid his father forever, but if he had to face Vader again, it would be on his own terms. With his own weapon. In his own time.

"Artoo, I want you to get the ship ready." Luke was already on his feet, gathering the few things he had that were of any practical value. "As soon as the storm clears. I know we just got this place back together, but…." He shook his head. "I think this is what I've been looking for."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"At least hear what he has to say."

Han didn't even bother to look down. He didn't have to look at Leia; he had seen her like this a hundred times before. She'd be standing there in those mechanic's clothes that made her look more like a janitor than a princess, her hands on her hips and her chin turned up like she was giving orders back on Alderaan. Her hair would be perfect, because her hair was always perfect, and her lips would be set in that tight little line that fell somewhere between aggravating and attractive. She was in her element – scolding him, telling him what to do. Just like she was trying to be somebody's mother.

Well, if there was one thing Han Solo didn't need, it was a mother. Especially not a mother who kept coming in here when he was trying to work on the _Falcon_, telling him to talk to a traitor like Lando Calrissian.

"Chewie!" he called. "Try it again!"

The section of wiring he'd been working on erupted into a geyser of sparks. Han flinched, shielding his eyes with one hand as he inched back toward the upper hatch. "That's not it! Turn it off!" He leaned over the hatch and, in a voice so low that Leia wouldn't be able to hear it, added, "Better than it was, though. Don't know what they were thinking, going back to the factory settings."

"Han!" Leia's voice rang out in the hangar, and Chewie moaned.

"Hey, don't you talk to me about forgiveness," Han snapped at his first mate. "You weren't there!" He could feel the same old anger rising in his chest, making it hard to breathe, and he wished once again that he could be anywhere but here. Just a day or two more, he told himself. They'd have the _Falcon_ ready, and they'd be out of here. "Yeah, yeah, I know." He climbed down the ladder into the port-side corridor. "We'll be out of here soon. Hey." He took the fusioncutter from Chewie's hand and looked him in the eye. "We talked about this, Chewie."

Well, Han had talked, anyway. He knew that Chewie wasn't with him on this, and sometimes he wondered exactly how far he could push this friendship before it would break. Chewie had agreed to go, but only reluctantly, and he was making it perfectly clear that he didn't think leaving was the right thing to do.

"Han, I know you can hear me." Leia was approaching the ship. He heard her footsteps on the entrance ramp and could see her again in his mind's eye, just the way she'd been in that asteroid field.

"Yeah, I can hear you," he shouted back, and then muttered under his breath, "Boy, can I hear you."

He didn't realize that he was still holding the fusioncutter until he was halfway up the ladder, and by then he didn't really feel like going back. He turned his attention back to the open panel. He'd rewired most of it, and if the deflectors weren't quite what they'd been before whoever the hell had tried to fix his ship had messed with them, they would be. Just as soon as he got off this rock and back to a real shipyard. Somewhere. If any place would still have him.

And that was the real problem, Han thought, as he pulled one of the power couplings loose and began the arduous process of welding it back into the same place it had been to start with. He wasn't a smuggler anymore, and he certainly didn't belong here with this bunch of would-be heroes. Sure, he'd had friends, or at least people who wouldn't shoot him on sight, but he hadn't talked to any of them in years. If they remembered him at all, he thought, it was probably as the guy who'd been at least partly responsible for the assassination of Jabba the Hutt – who'd been as nasty a gangster as they came, but also the source of some of the most lucrative smuggling jobs on the Outer Rim.

Han pulled a set of hydrogrips from the pile of tools beside him and clamped a handful of wires into place. Friendships were overrated anyway, he told himself. And besides, he still had Chewie. And Luke.

_Han?_

"Dammit!" He threw the tools down with enough force to make a dent in the _Falcon_'s metal plating. He wasn't going to think about the kid, he'd promised himself that. Not until he was out of here. Not until there was something he could do about it. Now he was hearing Luke's voice, like he was standing right behind him.

_No._ He reached into the access panel with his bare hands and began to string the connections. He would have to solder them into place later, but for now he wanted to feel his ship, real and in front of him and completely within his control. He pushed the thought of Luke from his mind. _You're not going crazy, Solo. Not now._

* * *

Leia folded her arms over her chest and watched him from the other side of the ship. He hadn't even heard her come up the ladder. This was how he had been, ever since they'd brought him here: locked in his own little world, going out of his way not to have any meaningful interactions with anyone. He hadn't asked about the Alliance, hadn't shown any interest when she'd tried to fill him in on a couple of recent campaigns. He hadn't asked about Luke, after that first day. He hadn't asked about what had happened at Jabba's.

And the worst of it – Leia bit her lip, using the physical pain in a vain attempt to drown out her emotions – he hadn't shown any interest in her at all.

Her footsteps rang sharp and metallic on the ship's hull, but Han had eyes and ears only for his first love. It hurt. She wasn't supposed to feel this way – lonely? Rejected? Jealous of a ship?

"Han." She touched his arm, and he jerked it away as if she had burned him. "What's wrong?" He looked away, reaching for another tool, and even Leia could tell that the one he grabbed wouldn't do him any good for this particular job. "Talk to me," she hated the pleading tone of her voice, but it was too late to take it back now.

"Nothing to say."

"Then at least talk to Lando. Don't let him leave without saying goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Han looked up. She'd gotten his attention, at least. "Where's he going?"

Leia sighed. This wasn't the first time she's mentioned this to Han – or the second, or the third. "He's going with the fleet to Cor Mannar. There's a small Imperial outpost there. If we can take it out it'll cut parsecs off our main trade route."

"Trade route, huh?" Han wasn't done with his welding, but he slammed the panel shut with a bang. "Sounds like a pretty good way for a businessman to become a hero."

"I'm no hero." Han jumped again, this time at the sound of Lando's voice. "But I pay my debts."

"Get away from my ship, Lando."

Leia looked down. She had no idea how long Lando had been standing there, watching them. The ramp was down, the Falcon standing wide open. He could have walked right on in, she thought, and he hadn't.

"Are you kidding?" Lando's tone was light, joking. "Who do you think fixed the hyperdrive? Not to mention just about everything else on her."

It had been Artoo, not Lando, who had finally figured out how to fix the hyperdrive, but Leia decided that, this time at least, the lie was better than the alternative.

"Paying your debts, right." Han gathered up his tools. There were too many; he couldn't hold them all at once and a handful of hydrospanners fell to the ground with a clang.

"Some of them," Lando conceded. "I thought I took care of the rest when I saved your life."

Han said nothing, but he didn't walk away either. He just stood there looking at the pile of tools with a dark, angry expression on his face.

"I called in every favor I had, and some that I didn't," Lando continued, and a touch of anger crept into his voice as well. "I owe more now than you ever did, and I'm not talking about money."

"Yeah, well no one asked you to!"

"I did it because I thought you were worth it." Lando turned away, and Leia fought against the urge to call out to him. "Looks like I was wrong."

This, apparently, had pushed all the right buttons. Han stormed to the edge of the ship, throwing the rest of the tools down behind him. "Hey, look, I'm not the one who turned you over to the Empire, all right?"

"I did what I had to do."

"To protect yourself? Your mining colony? Yeah, that's real noble, Lando. Didn't you ever think that maybe I'd rather die than…" He glanced over his shoulder at Leia and fell silent, shaking his head as he swallowed what he had been about to say.

Lando looked up. "Come with me."

Leia raised an eyebrow in surprise. Lando had talked to her before he came; she knew what he'd intended to ask Han and she thought that she understood why. But with Han the way he was, she was more than a little shocked that he'd actually gone through with it. She frowned a little, knowing how badly Han would react if he knew exactly how much her respect for Lando had grown over the past few weeks.

"We could use you. And Chewie. We could use a ship like the _Falcon_. And you need to get out of here, Han."

Han was quiet, his expression blank. When he spoke at last it was in a low, emotionless voice. "I thought I told you to get away from my ship."

He turned his back on Lando and disappeared back down into the _Falcon_, leaving his friends just as he'd left his tools – for someone else to take care of later.

* * *

It wasn't until that night that he finally decided to talk to Leia. He thought that she would come to him. She usually did – maybe because she thought he wanted company, but Han strongly suspected that it was more for her own sake that she visited him with her stories of border skirmishes and diplomatic negotiations, always skirting around the things that she really wanted to talk about. If she was hoping that Han would do the dirty work, bring up any of the things that he was trying hard to forget, well then Her Highness was going to be royally disappointed.

He paced back and forth from one side of his room to the other, trying not to think about what he would say. Han was angry – at Lando, at Vader, at whatever ugly bit of luck had landed him in the middle of this rebellion in the first place. He wasn't really angry with Leia. At some level, he knew that, but she was the closest. The easiest target. It wasn't that he didn't regret some of the things he had said to her since he'd been here, but regret never seemed to stop him from hurting her again.

_And the one time I actually_ want _to talk to Her Worship, she doesn't show._

It just wasn't supposed to be this way. Han had been sure that he was going to die, and if the thought had scared him at first, he had soon come to accept it, and in the end it was the only hope he'd had left. He'd already lost Leia. It wasn't that he hated her, or even that he'd fallen out of love with her. It was just that none of this was supposed to exist anymore, and Han didn't know what to do with it now that it was here.

He grabbed his jacket – not his, really, Alliance issue and itchy as hell – from the bed and slung it over his shoulder. He knew where she was. She'd come here and try to talk to him, and when she finally gave up and got that look of disbelief in her eyes, like she used to get back on Yavin when she'd still let his taunting bother her, she'd head down the corridor to the lift. Han had followed her a couple of times. He was much stronger than he had been, after a couple of soaks in a bacta tank, but still unable – or unwilling – to actually catch up with her and get her to stay. He didn't know what was up there, on the top level where the lift always stopped, but if Leia went up there when she was upset, he was pretty sure that that was where he would find her tonight.

His quarters were on the tenth level, which meant ten levels below the ground. The hangar bay was accessible from the eighth level, with a high ceiling that could be fully opened to allow multiple ships to take off at once. Han had seen it opened a few times since he'd been here; they were trying to keep activity to a minimum, but the fighter squadrons still had to run reconnaissance missions to make sure that it was working. Still, other than the empty blue sky and the wood-paneled walls of the base, he had no idea what this planet even looked like.

He pushed the button to call the lift; it resisted, and he could hear the spring mechanism groaning inside it. A lot of the base had been refurbished by the Alliance, but these were original. Old and noisy and cranky as hell, but at least they were still working after all these years. He could respect them for that, Han thought, as the doors rattled open on worn-out tracks. It would be nice – not very likely, but nice – if he could say the same for himself in a decade or two.

The doors opened on to what had once been a rooftop landing platform. It wasn't in use anymore – would have been suicide, keeping Alliance ships right out in the open like that – but some of the trappings of its previous life remained. Moss crept over the concrete, obscuring but not hiding the markings that would once have guided ships to a safe landing, and bits of rusty metal sticking out haphazardly from what otherwise appeared to be pillars of vines marked the places where the maintenance equipment had stood. The entire rooftop was surrounded with a low fence made, like so many things on this planet, of wood. It was broken in places and rotting in others, but one long stretch had, through some miracle of nature, survived, and it was there that he found Leia, leaning out over the wooded valley below as though she was about to just leap over the railing and fly.

Summer here was over, and the leaves of the deciduous trees were beginning to change color and fall, contrasting softly with the deep evergreens. The entire valley was laced with tendrils of steam, rising from hot springs that lay hidden beneath the branches. Compared to some of the dumps the Alliance had managed to land themselves in, this place wasn't bad, and Han almost wished he'd been paying more attention to Threepio's attempt at an orientation.

Leia wore a sleeveless dress with nothing but a sheer tunic over it, and her arms were covered with a prickling of goosebumps in the early evening air. "Han," she said. Her voice was flat and unreadable.

Han stopped, not really surprised that she had known it was him – they'd spent a lot of time alone in pretty close quarters after all, and as much as that all felt like a lifetime ago, he thought he still probably knew her pretty well too. It wasn't that. It was just… Leia. How long had it been since he'd seen her dressed up, her hair up and the slender line of her neck a white silhouette against the darkening sky. She was so small, so fragile. He wished that things had turned out differently, that he was still the same man he used to be. He wanted to hold her, to protect her, to somehow make things right for her and for her rebellion. But the man that could have done those things was gone. Han watched her, watched the wind tease the hem of her dress until it danced in the same patterns as the steam. She was going to fly away, and the only thing he could do to stop her was to be the one to fly away first.

"I, uh… I need to talk to you."

Leia took a deep breath; he could hear her exhale. "You should go with him."

It took a moment for Han to process what she was saying. "With Lando?" The name, the thought jerked him back to reality, and he could still taste the anger on his tongue. "Think I'll pass."

She turned and looked him in the eye. "You're going somewhere, though." She was trying to sound angry, but Han didn't think she was doing a very good job. "You know how badly things are going for us. You know how much we need you, and – "

"Yeah, I get it." Han couldn't stop the words once they'd started to come. "Did you think I was going to settle down, have a couple of kids, trade the _Falcon_ in for a family cruiser? Sorry, Princess, I…. Hey, Leia." The look on her face called out to that part of him that wished none of this had ever happened, and his voice softened. "I'm sorry." There was no sarcasm this time. "I'm sorry about… everything."

"What about us, Han?"

"Us?"

"Was there ever an us?"

"Hey… don't look at me. I'm not the one who said – "

"_Don't._" Her voice was ice. "Just… just don't. Please."

Han shrugged. He knew that he was hurting her. It hurt him too, and he didn't know why he couldn't just _stop_. Stop hurting her. Get away from here and let her move on.

"You're going after him, aren't you?" She stepped away from the railing and reached out for him. Even after all of this, she still wanted to touch him, still wanted to hope that he could come back to her. "Han. No one knows where Luke_ is_."

He took a step back. "What did he say?"

Leia was silent.

"When he left. What did he say?"

"He said…" Leia's voice cracked. "He said there was something he had to do alone."

"Something. You didn't ask him what?"

Leia shook her head. "I couldn't. Han, I…. Something… happened to him up there."

"Really?" Han snapped. "I never would have guessed."

"That's not what I mean! It was like…" She shivered, and Han couldn't be sure if it was a reaction to the cold or to the memory. "He was different. Like he wasn't Luke anymore. Vader… did something to him. I…"

"Yeah," Han nodded. "I guess I know what that's like."

Leia reached out again, and this time she did touch him. He tried to pull away, but she held on, pulled him back, and forced him to look her in the eye. "This is a war, Han. People are suffering."

"Don't talk to me about suffering."

"You don't think I've suffered?" Now she was angry. "You don't think we all have? Every person down there" – she gestured toward the lift – "has lost something to the Empire. And we deal with it. We move on. We turn our pain into strength, because the Emperor isn't going to sit back and wait until you're done with your… with your midlife crisis!"

"Midlife crisis?" Han snatched his arm back. "Midlife crisis? Your whole rebellion was my midlife crisis."

Leia looked down. "I know you don't mean that."

"Look…" Han sighed. "I need to find Luke. He belongs here, not me."

Leia said nothing. There was nothing she could have said. She just stood there and nodded and watched as Han Solo disappeared from her life again.

* * *

As far as Han could tell, the _Falcon_ was ready to go. He didn't want to admit it, but other than tweaking a few of his modifications, Lando had actually done a decent job of fixing her up. She wasn't back to the way she had been, but she would fly, and for the moment that was going to have be good enough.

"All right, Chewie," Han stormed into the cockpit, pulled off the Alliance jacket and tossed it into a corner. "Get us out of here."

Chewie howled and rattled the controls for the navicomputer.

"What do you mean, I don't know where I'm going?" There was no one else on the ship, but Han lowered his voice anyway. "I told you, we're going to the Dagobah system."

Chewie roared.

"I don't know how to spell it! Let me see." Han scowled. How was he supposed to know where the Dagobah system was? As far as he knew, Luke didn't even know that he'd been babbling like that out in the snow, and Han definitely wasn't going to ask the kid what he'd been hallucinating. "Didn't think I'd ever need to," he muttered under his breath.

Chewie reached over and brought up another screen. Then another. It wasn't in the Hoth sector, or any of the surrounding areas of the Rim. It wasn't in the Core, either, but Han hadn't really expected it to be.

"I don't know." He shook his head, and Chewie gave a doubtful whine. "That's all he said. Dagobah system. That, and whining for old man Kenobi, and someone called Yoda. Try the Yoda system."

Chewie did, but the result was the same.

Han tried to think. Where else would the kid have gone? Not Tatooine – if he'd been there, he would have been at Jabba's palace with Lando. Luke was like that, always trying to be a hero. They'd been on a dozen different planets in the past three years, but none of them made any sense now. He wouldn't have gone to an Imperial world, and all of the old Alliance bases were deserted. It didn't make sense that he wasn't _here_.

"I don't know, Chewie." Han couldn't remember anything else. That was all the kid had said. Those were all the systems he even _knew!_ "Just take us somewhere, all right?"

He heard his first mate's question, but he didn't want to think too hard about the answer. There were thousands of habitable worlds out there, and Luke could be hurt and alone on any one of them. He had no idea how they were going to find him.

"Come on, I'm taking off!" Han initiated the startup sequence. The navicomputer was buzzing at him, telling him to select a destination. "Take us somewhere, Chewie. As long as it's not here."

* * *

_**A/N:**__ A big thanks to stargazerlily for beta reading, and thanks as always to my lovely readers and reviewers!_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

From space, the planet Kurakae looked like nothing more than a lifeless black ball, a little lump of charcoal spinning through space under the cover of an apparently seamless shroud of storm clouds. The X-Wing's sensors blinked and whirred, trying to make sense of the darkness as Luke plunged the ship down into the first layer of cloud cover. The stars faded, Artoo squealed in protest, and the world outside turned grey, then black, then grey again as they burst through the overcast and came out over a sea that was distinguishable from the sky only by the dirty-white crests of the waves.

"It looks like there's a city to the north and…" Luke rested his right arm instinctively on the joystick, relying on the Force to hold it steady as he used his hand to scroll down to the next page of information. "Another to the southeast. What do you think, Artoo?"

He could feel the cities buzzing with life, a kind of white noise that underscored everything else. There were voices there, thoughts, dirtier and more complicated than what he had felt on Hoth or even Dagobah. Luke thought that if he really listened he might be able to focus on a single spark, to pull a voice out of the cacophony and make it mean something. Of course, even if he could do it, the chance that whatever random being he decided to focus on would have any knowledge that would help him was slim. He didn't even have a name – not the name of the city, and not the name of the man.

"…dentified vessel…." A burst of static from the ship's communicator interrupted the thought. "…ame an…ation."

"Artoo?" He returned his hand to the joystick, pulling up the ship's nose until he was flying more or less level with the water. "See if you can clear that up?"

"Unidentified vessel." The voice was clear this time, and clearly not happy with the X-Wing's current path of descent. "State your name and destination."

"This is L – " Luke caught himself just in time. Kurakae was neutral – that didn't mean friendly, and just because it wasn't actually a part of the Empire didn't mean that there weren't people here who would be happy to bring home the price on his head. "Lars." It was the first name that came to mind. "Owen Lars. I, uh… I'm a client of the Archoi Medical Supply Company."

"Owen Lars." Luke felt the escort ships pull up behind him before he saw them. He sensed no malice from the pilots; they were just doing their job, but he couldn't tell whether or not they had bought his lie. After a long com silence, a different voice chimed in. "Landing permission granted. Municipal platform A-63."

"Thank you," he replied, following his escort as they skimmed over the murky water, heading for an equally dark landmass on the horizon.

It was a port city, full of low, blocky buildings and what seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of berths for ships of various sizes. It reminded Luke of Mos Eisley, in a way, except that he had never seen Mos Eisley Spaceport quite as full as the city that spread out below him now. Nearly every docking bay and landing platform was occupied – by freighters and personal shuttles, mostly, although he noticed a few small warships among them, and something that looked like a heavily modified Y-Wing. For a planet that didn't appear to have much to offer besides the ocean, the spaceport, and the bulk of the factories rising behind it, Kurakae certainly seemed to be a popular destination.

The escort ships were still behind him as he initiated the landing sequence. The ship responded as well to the Force as it did to manual commands; Luke was hardly experienced when it came to landing the fighter this way, but he didn't think there was any way that an observer would be able to tell that he was doing anything out of the ordinary. Still, he was uneasy. It felt like a long time since he'd been around other people, and while it hadn't really mattered on Hoth, he was going to have to be careful about using the Force while he was here.

He was met by a lone spaceport official who gave the fighter a long look, registering its scored hull and Alliance markings with the same curiosity with which he regarded its pilot. "How long?" he barked in a gruff voice.

"Excuse me?" The question caught Luke by surprise.

"How long you staying?" The man's curiosity crackled in the air. Luke didn't think that he meant him any harm, but he felt vulnerable and exposed. He was beginning to think that coming here had been a mistake.

"I, uh… I'm not sure, really. A couple of days?"

The official nodded and reached into a pocket, pulling out a datacard and a token. "Pay by the day." He handed Luke the card. "Leave that in your ship. This" – he held up the coin – "is for the showers."

"Thanks." Luke took the token awkwardly with his thumb and forefinger, nearly letting the datacard fall from his hand in the process. The official gave him a hard look, and his gaze flicked for a moment to where his right hand should have been before he looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

"Hey," Luke called out as he turned to leave. "Is there anyplace to stay around here?"

The man shrugged. "It's Carnival night," he said, as if that answered the question, and walked away.

The air was hot and humid, heavy with the smell and the salt of the sea. It wasn't the first time Luke had been this close to a real ocean, but he'd never been there long enough to get used to the way it smelled. He was glad to get out of his flightsuit, gladder still for the spaceport shower. It was cramped, slippery, and reeked of mildew, but it was warm running water, and it felt good to be at least somewhat clean. He shaved – not a brilliant job, but at least he didn't look like a hermit or a madman anymore – and changed into cargo pants and a short-sleeved shirt, the most lightweight of the few clothes he'd been able to scavenge from Hoth.

He almost hadn't brought them and now, looking at himself in a real mirror for the first time since he'd left the medical ship, he almost decided to change. It was stupid, he knew; it wasn't as if hiding his stump in the padding of his flightsuit would make his missing hand any less obvious. He didn't know anyone on this planet anyway. No one had any right to care and if they did, he had no obligation to explain.

Luke fumbled with his belt, leaning against the wall to try to hold it in place while he tried to convince his fingers to cooperate on both sides of the clasp. _What exactly am I going to do even if I do find another lightsaber? I can't even dress myself. How am I supposed to stand a chance against… him?_

And that was the real problem. It wasn't that Luke was ashamed of the way he looked, or even the way these stupid, everyday little things had suddenly become a challenge. It was just that…he was used to being the kid from Tatooine. He was used to being a pilot, almost used to being a commander. Three years after the fact, he thought he was finally getting used to being the hero of the Battle of Yavin. But now he was none of those people. He never really had been. It wasn't a farmboy or a hero that he saw in the mirror, that he was afraid people would see when they stared at him on the street. It was a man who had looked into the mask of Darth Vader and – however he had tried to deny it at the time – seen himself.

The clasp slid into place, and Luke let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He gave his reflection another long look, telling himself – truthfully, he knew – that there was nothing there to see. This was a war, after all. There were thousands of injured veterans in the galaxy, and it wasn't as if his parentage was written all over his face for the world to see. He still felt naked, though, as he slung the flightsuit over his shoulder and carted it back through the spaceport to the ship.

He left Artoo and the X-Wing behind, making his way through the spaceport to the city beyond. Thoroughfares built to accommodate maintenance vehicles and heavy machinery gave way to pedestrian walkways, and as the parts shops and service stations grew sparse, bars and casinos sprung up to take their place. The streets here were as drab and grey as the rest of the city, but the people who had come to partake of their offerings were dressed to the nines in every possible color, including some that Luke would have had a hard time putting a name to. It was Carnival night, apparently, and he supposed that should have been explanation enough.

Luke was no good at reading people, even through the Force, but he could feel the eyes of the city on him. On his arm, yes, but just as often on his clothing or his face or his wet, overgrown hair. The people around him wore robes and gowns and their alien equivalents, decadent from a distance but up close, mostly made of cheap, gaudy fabrics and mended in obvious places. They were at war, after all. Hard times, he guessed, were everywhere, but these people were at least trying to make the most of them. The smell of alcohol mingled with the stench of the sea, and a hundred voices rose all at once in a hundred songs that almost – but not quite – drowned out the crackle of thoughts and impulses that ran like a current through his mind.

The man next to him raised a glass, engraved with the insignia of some cantina, to his girl, and he beat with a raw animal lust. Ahead, a group of starpilots huddled in the street over an impromptu game of sabacc, greed and desperation pooling around them like sand in a Tatooine sinkhole. A group of women – girls, really, though they were trying their best not to look it – passed by, and Luke felt their stares as little jabs. One of them called out to him a loud, bawdy voice, but he could feel beneath it an anger, a restlessness that had little to do with sexual desires. It was too much. He had to focus, had to find this weapons dealer – if he even existed, that is. If he was even here. Yoda and Ben had both lived alone, on out of the way planets without much in the way of sentient life. Was this why? Was he never going to be able to set foot on a populated world again?

_I have to get out of this crowd._ He was suffocating. There were too many people here, too many voices. He tried to focus, but the city was a blur in his mind's eye. This had been a mistake. He longed for Hoth. For Dagobah. For silence.

What he found wasn't silence, but it was close enough. A string of calm, of voices that spoke not in the excited pitch of the Carnival around him but in a slow, methodical, everyday sort of way. _There_. It was a safe place, as streaked with darkness as the rest of the world around him but _quiet_. And right. Luke didn't know what was right about it, exactly, but he thought that things would be all right, somehow, if he could only make it through the crowd to the quiet.

He let himself be pushed through the crowd, past glitzy casinos and sabacc halls and a string of expensive-looking bars, down into a darker cross-street. A few of the revelers who had lost their way or maybe just had a few too many drinks were here, leaning against the walls and sprawled on the ground, giving into to baser thoughts or just to pure exhaustion. Luke left them where they were and stepped further into the alley. The grey of the city was almost black here, the buildings too small and too close to each other to leave anything but shadows between. He followed the doors, one after another, touching them with the hand that wasn't there. _Here_. He stopped. This was where he was supposed to go.

It was a bar of a completely different sort from the ones on the main road – dark and damp, but surprisingly crowded. Nearly every table was full and there was a crowd of multi-racial patrons gathered around the counter. They were locals, maybe, or freighter pilots. None of them were dressed in Carnival livery, and none of them even looked up when Luke opened the door and walked in. He could feel them glowing, pulsing in the Force, but not like the people outside had. That had been a crowd. These were just people, some of them tied to each other, some of them at least reaching out – but most of them were just alone.

He ordered a drink, took a sip, and set it down on the counter in front of him. He wouldn't finish it; it was hard enough to focus sober. Something had called him here. He tried to keep his mind on that, on the reason he had come here in the first place. If there were any illegal weapons dealers in this city, they were far more likely to be hanging out in places like this than in the too-public neighborhood he had just left.

He tried to focus on a single target. The bartender – he was right there, pouring a drink with his back to the counter. Luke lowered his eyes and stared into his drink, seeing bubbles, the dirty glass, the water-stained counter…and then seeing through them. It wasn't like touching Han or…or Vader. He had no connection with this man, and what he saw was grainy and dulled, like the view from his skyhopper after a flight through a sandstorm. A drink. Another drink. A silent loathing for the patrons who drank them. An empty till, and a woman. She was waiting for him with eyes that had already given up.

The bartender turned, gave him a quizzical look, and gestured to the glass on the counter between them. "Not strong enough for ya?" he growled.

Luke shook his head and pulled away – or tried to, anyway. The bond he had erected between them lingered, and he saw the woman's eyes close, saw her shake her head and fade away as he took another sip. "It's fine," he lied, and turned his attention to the Sullustan seated next to him.

One by one, he touched his fellow patrons. They were tainted, every one of them. Anger. Despair. Loss. He didn't look any closer. He didn't really want to see. At the far end of the counter, a spirit dark with illness and decay took pleasure in what might be its last indulgence. At a table in the corner, a woman looked at her companion with hope and concern, and what he threw back at her was a murderous rage. And at a dark table in the very back of the bar….

Luke stood, vaguely aware that he had spilled his drink in the process. The bartender cursed; the Sullustan moved to a cleaner spot further down the bar. Luke barely noticed. He should have felt it sooner, should have known what about this place felt so right…because it wasn't right. He had left the Alliance for a reason, and he never would have come here if he had known….

He took a step back, but couldn't bring himself to run. This place had been full of despair, but now, as he saw himself through a familiar pair of eyes, it flooded with a twisting, gut-wrenching relief. The figure stepped out of the shadows with his mouth half-open in palpable disbelief.

"Luke?"

Luke stepped forward to meet him.

"Han."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Lord Vader."

"Admiral." That single word was apparently all that Vader could spare. The starscape beyond the _Executor_'s main viewscreen, and the planet that was its centerpiece, currently commanded most of his attention.

Piett cleared his throat. "Our spies on Kurakae have identified a ship which matches the description of the _Millennium Falcon_. They have yet to confirm, but –"

"Excellent." Vader turned, his interest piqued. "Who is the pilot?"

"I…our spies have been unable to confirm, but we assume it is either Solo or Calrissian."

"No assumptions, Admiral. Find out which."

"Yes, my Lord." Piett bowed, and would have left in a hurry were it not for the sound of impatient footsteps on the bridge behind him.

"Admiral Piett?" The footsteps stopped, and their owner – a Captain Troda, fairly new to his command, but showing promise – bowed his head to his commanding officer and to the Dark Lord who stood at his side.

"Yes, Captain?"

"We've received an urgent transmission from the Cor Mannar system. General Varkas wishes to speak with you immediately."

Piett nodded, but it was Vader who answered. "Put him on the main screen. I will hear his report personally."

"Yes, my Lord." The captain's voice trembled, and Piett wondered if they were thinking the same thing. Varkas was an especially pompous and incompetent commander, and it had been weeks since Vader's last execution.

"Lord Vader." An image of the general filled the main screen, drawing the attention of the entire bridge. He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. "We have received reports of a Rebel force en route to this location. It is an insignificant force, consisting mainly of small fighters. Captain Erdon of the Star Destroyer _Inclement_ has set a course of interception. We expect to defeat them easily, my Lord."

"Tell the captain to change his course. You will handle the Rebels on your own."

"But – my Lord," the general sputtered. "Without the _Inclement_, we are outnumbered! Half of my men are new recruits, and…"

Piett fought to remain expressionless as the general clawed at his neck, his eyes bulging in what had become quite a familiar expression of suffering.

"I am aware of your situation, General. You will do as I command."

Varkas fell to his knees. "Yes, Lord Vader." He gasped for air between each word. "I will contact… the captain…."

"That will no longer be necessary," Vader said as the general gurgled his last. "Captain Troda."

"Yes, Lord Vader?"

"Contact the _Inclement_, and inform the captain that he is to divert his course immediately. Tell him that he may direct any complaints to me."

"Yes, sir."

"Commander?" Vader directed his attention to Varkas's second-in-command.

"Y – yes, my Lord?" The man stammered, and his eyes flickered uncomfortably between the holorecorder and the spot just off screen where the general's body had fallen.

"You will face the Rebels without reinforcements. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, my Lord." The transmission terminated.

"Lord Vader." Piett spoke softly. "Are you sure this is wise? If the Rebels are allowed to capture Cor Mannar, they will have easy access to a number of Core systems…including this one." He looked out the window at the planet they had been orbiting for the past twenty-four hours. _Vanir._ The name alone was enough to strike fear into half the men in his command, and the other half didn't rank high enough to have heard of it.

"Yes." Vader, too, looked out at the stars. "It is as the Emperor has foreseen. Admiral!"

Piett snapped to attention.

"Tell our men on Kurakae to begin the procedure immediately. Confirm that it is Solo, not Calrissian, on board, and…"

"Yes, Lord Vader?"

"Instruct them not to activate until Skywalker has arrived here." He punctuated the last word with a single gloved finger, and Piett swallowed hard as he indicated his understanding.

Vader turned his attention back to the viewport. The second moon was just now coming into view over the dark rim of the planet, a slowly waxing crescent in the infinite night.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

The table was built to seat four, but Han Solo sat there alone, nursing his drink and wondering why, out of all the dumps in the galaxy, Chewie had decided to drag him back to this place. Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. He knew exactly why Chewie had come here, and it had everything to do with a Wookiee barmaid working up by the factory district, and nothing at all to do with Han.

It served him right. He hadn't been thinking about Chewie when he'd left. Heck, maybe he hadn't even been thinking about Luke, even though he kept telling himself that he was going to find the kid somehow, bring him back to the Alliance. And that would fix what, exactly? Han downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp, and motioned to the barkeep to bring him another. Not like he was going to be flying anywhere tonight. Not like there was anywhere that he especially wanted to go.

Han wasn't the smartest guy in the galaxy, not when it came to the kind of stuff they taught in school, but he wasn't dumb either, and he knew what he had heard. _Ben… Yoda…Dagobah System._ They'd been in that shelter a whole night, and Han wasn't the one who had been delusional. Luke had disappeared after Hoth…Rieekan and the others had told him as much, hadn't they? "So come on, kid." He glanced over at the bar; the bartender was still pouring his drink. "Where'd you run off to?"

The bartender turned around, still holding the drink, and Han almost cursed out loud. Now he was going to have to get up, go over to the bar, and tell that scruffy-looking pilot, mechanic, whoever he was that that was _his_ Corellian brandy, thank you very much, and that –

"Luke?" He squinted into the darkness. It couldn't be Luke, of course it couldn't. Not in a dump like this. So what if he was about the same height, had the same color hair? Must be a thousand guys in the galaxy that would have looked enough like Luke at this distance, in this light. More, Han thought, if you factored in the amount he had had to drink, and the fact that he'd been worried sick about the kid ever since Leia had shown him that damn file.

The bartender asked him something, and Han watched the pilot – not Luke, couldn't be Luke – shake his head. He looked up, just for a second, not long enough for Han to catch his eye, and then lowered his head, letting that shaggy hair fall into his face and making it impossible to see anything more.

It seemed like something Luke would do.

Han leaned back into the shadows, ready for that drink now and pretty sure that it was coming. He didn't see the shaggy-haired pilot stand up, didn't see him spill his drink as he looked for Han in the shadows. He did hear the scraping of barstools on the floor and a string of Sullustan curses, and that was what finally brought Han to his feet, and turned the oath on his lips into a name.

"Luke?" There was no denying it now. He was too thin and his hair was too long, and as he stepped forward Han could see that his right arm ended right above the wrist, but it was still Luke.

"Han." It wasn't a question. How long had Luke known he'd been back there?

"You… you look all right, kid."

"Yeah… so do you." Luke always had been a lousy liar.

Han took the glass of brandy from the bartender and gestured to the mess that his friend had just made. "Another round for my friend here." He tossed a handful of credits across the counter. It was more than twice what the two drinks should have cost, and it seemed to have the desired effect. The bartender produced another glass, filled it with the same noxious stuff that Luke had just spilled all over the bar, and gave them the closest thing he probably had to a smile. Incident forgotten.

"What are you doing here?" Han tried to keep his tone light, but Luke hesitated.

"I could ask you the same thing."

Han nodded. "Yeah, I guess you could." It was fine with him if Luke didn't want to talk about what had happened to him. At least it meant that Han wouldn't have to repay the favor.

They sat across from each other in the booth that he had just vacated. Han swallowed half of his drink in a single mouthful, and Luke set his down on the table without taking a sip.

Han gestured to the glass. "Drink up, kid. It's on me."

Luke nodded and lifted the drink to his lips, but when he returned it to the table it didn't look like there was any less in the glass than there had been to start with. He traced the rim of the glass with his finger, never looking up, never really looking at Han. His shoulders were slumped and he kept the stump of his right arm hidden under the table.

"Hey, Luke… there's nothing to be ashamed of, you know?"

"Han?" Luke looked up suddenly, not so much in response to Han's words as in response to whatever had been going on in his head.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing here?"

Han shrugged. "Ask Chewie."

"Why aren't you…" Luke lowered his voice and looked Han in the eye, suddenly ten years older and frightening in a way that Han couldn't quite put his finger on. "Why aren't you back with… with Leia and the others?"

Han laughed. "Me? I was out looking for you, kid." Luke had outgrown that nickname, he thought, but as long as they were keeping up appearances…. "You're supposed to be out saving the galaxy, not drowning your sorrows in a dump like this."

Luke lowered his eyes; that damn drink must have been the most interesting thing in the universe.

"So what are you doing here?"

"I don't know." He took another non-sip. "I… I lost my lightsaber, Han."

His voice was thin and tired, and for some reason all Han could think of when he heard those words was himself, saying, in some unimaginable nightmare, "I lost the _Falcon_." His lightsaber. Sure, Han had teased him about it more often than not, but Luke had carried that thing everywhere, even when it was only going to get in the way. Even when it was a blatant violation of uniform. That piece of junk was the only thing the kid had left of his father, and even though Luke had never said as much, Han knew it was the most important thing – probably the _only_ important thing that he had owned.

Maybe this was what Leia was talking about. _Something happened to him up there_. Han wondered if this was it.

He wondered if he was supposed to say something. He had just about decided that he probably was, and was working on exactly what that something was supposed to be when Luke spoke again.

"You told me about this place."

"This place?" Han looked around. He'd been here a handful of times before, but there was nothing special about it. No reason to have ever mentioned it to Luke.

"Not the bar." Luke smiled, or tried to, and ended up with an expression even sadder than the lost one he'd had a moment before. "This planet. You said you had a friend here. A weapons dealer."

Han nodded. "Yeah, I know a couple of guys like that. Don't know if I'd call them friends, but…. Hey." He saw what Luke was trying to do, and the situation stopped making sense to him just as quickly as it had started. "The guys I know, they deal in antiques. Classics. What you're talking about, that's…"

"Just tell me where I can find him."

"Luke." The look in his friend's eyes scared him; he was desperate. Backed into a corner, Han thought, like a wounded animal ready to die and just hoping he could take a few of his predators down with him.

"Please, Han."

Han polished off his drink. He'd had too much and he knew it, but he still felt too sober for this particular conversation. "Just don't get your hopes up, kid."

"Don't worry." Luke pushed his drink away. "I'm not expecting anything."

* * *

Old Sauvith was still where Han had always found him, hanging out in the back room of that dirty old Sabacc hall with an entourage of rough-looking women who – Han always thought to himself – couldn't possibly have been there for the gambling.

He was either human or humanoid, covered from head to toe in what was either a layer of scales or some kind of skin condition. Considering that he kept half a dozen blasters of various sizes on his person and had easy access to a warehouse full of spares, Han wasn't especially eager to ask which. He was a crook and a villain, no doubt about that – but his only loyalty, as far as anyone knew, was to cold hard cash, and that made him trustworthy enough.

"Sauvith."

The dealer narrowed his eyes. "Do I know you?" His hand rested on the blaster on his hip.

"Han Solo." He waited for recognition, and when there was none, added, "We did business a few years back."

"Solo." Sauvith's voice rumbled; his yellow eyes searched Han's face. "I remember a Solo." He laughed. "You look like shit."

"I've been through some things, all right?" Han raised his empty hands in a show of peace. "It's me. I've got some business for you."

"And your friend?"

Luke hadn't said much since they'd left the bar, and Han was just about to answer for him. "He's –"

"Owen Lars." Luke stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height – not exactly impressive, but definitely better than the slouching shadow he had been. "Solo here tells me you might be able to help me."

Sauvith laughed. "It depends. What are you looking for? And how much are you willing to pay?"

Luke glanced nervously around the room. The door was closed behind them, the conversation inaudible from the main hall. Sauvith was flanked on either side by one of his girls, and another stood at the door with a sawed-off blaster in one hand and the other planted firmly on her hip.

_Come on, kid,_ Han thought. _Don't do anything stupid._

Luke brushed his utility belt with the stump of his right arm, touching the clip that had once held his father's lightsaber with the hand that had been lost with it. When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet, but a glance at the women's faces left no doubt that everyone in the room had heard it. "The weapon of a Jedi knight," he said slowly. "I need a working lightsaber."

A smile crept slowly onto Sauvith's face. "You bring me an interesting prospect, Solo." Han couldn't tell if that was sarcasm or not. "Very interesting, indeed."

"You've got one?" And there was the wide-eyed kid from Tatooine – at least, he would have been, if Han had closed his eyes and pretended that the past three years had never happened.

"No." Sauvith stood and turned his back to his clients; the girls tightened their grips on their blasters. "But I know someone who might. Give me a day. Two at the most. I'll see what I can do."

Luke said nothing; he stood perfectly still, rooted to the spot with his eyes fixed on Sauvith's back – no, not really. It was more like he was looking _through_ his back, through the wall of the room, watching something else that was only happening in his head. He swayed on his feet, and Han stepped forward, sure that he was going to faint, or worse.

"Hey!" He almost called out Luke's name, but remembered that the kid had given an alias and bit his tongue. "You all right?"

Luke spun around, reaching for his blaster in the split-second it took him to recognize that the only thing behind him was the door, closed and locked and guarded by a woman who looked like she could have ripped him in two with her bare hands. He jerked his hand away and took a step back, but the guard was upon him, staring down at him with cold eyes that didn't so much ask for an explanation as demand it.

"Kid! Owen!"

The sound of his uncle's name seemed to shock Luke back into reality; he blinked, looking around like he'd been shaken out of a dream.

"What are you doing, kid? It's all right. Just a couple of days."

Luke shook his head. "I thought…"

"Thought what?" It was the first time the guard had spoken, and it was clearly a challenge.

"That someone was…watching us," Luke muttered. "It's nothing. Nevermind."

The guard stepped back, but kept her hand on her weapon, and Sauvith gave Luke a long, thoughtful look.

"So, we'll, uh…. We'll see you in a day or two, right?" Han forced himself to sound jovial. _Just a couple of old friends doing business, right?_

Sauvith narrowed his eyes. "I'll be in touch."

* * *

Luke kept close to Han as they made their way back through the city to the spaceport, holding his arm close as though it hurt him and flinching every now and then, although Han couldn't figure out what exactly he was reacting too. He didn't say anything. The dark circles under his eyes looked even darker next to the revelry around them, and he shivered, though the city was anything but cold.

Han stopped on the spaceport's main thoroughfare, as soon as they were far enough out of the crowd that he could hear himself think. "Hey, Luke? You got a place to stay?"

"Yeah…" Luke hesitated. "I'm all right."

"You don't look all right. You got a ship?"

"Just my X-Wing." Yeah, Leia had said something about that. Han didn't understand how the kid had managed to fly an X-Wing all the way here in his condition, but he thought he could see, at least, why he had wanted to try.

"You can't sleep in one of those things."

Luke gave him a tired smile. "Did it all the time with the Alliance."

"Sauvith says a couple of days. That means at least a week. Come on," Han urged. "You can stay with us on the _Falcon_."

Luke shook his head. "I… I shouldn't."

"Why not? Come on. For old times' sake?"

"I'll just be in the way."

"Probably," Han retorted. "But I'm not gonna take no for an answer."

He suspected it had less to do with old times' sake and more to do with a lack of energy to argue, but Han still counted it as a little victory when Luke let himself be led away, down the foreign streets to the familiar safety of the _Millennium Falcon_.

* * *

Luke couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. It had started before they'd even reached the Sabacc hall – as soon as they'd left the bar, he guessed, if not earlier. It felt like someone was watching him. Not the strange one-handed pilot who had shown up out of place and dressed all wrong for the occasion, but _him_. Luke Skywalker. He had been almost sure of it, but when he'd tried to follow the sensation, trace the prickling on the back of his neck to its source, the roar of the crowd had drowned it out, and he wondered if it hadn't just been nerves.

Then he'd felt it again, in the locked and sealed back room, and had probably come pretty close to getting a blaster bolt in the gut as a result of it. Again, there'd been no one there, but knowing that hadn't made the feeling go away. Even the _Falcon_ felt wrong, somehow, like somehow it wasn't the same ship that had so recently carried him from Bespin, and Han….

Han had disappeared into the galley as soon as they boarded, leaving Luke alone at that old holochess table, with nothing but his memories and that sense of wrongness to keep him company. He returned now, carrying two battered metal cups, and set one down on the table in front of Luke.

"Drink. It'll make you feel better."

Han looked like he had aged twenty years since Luke had last seen him. His clothes hung loosely on his frame, and the sharp form of his collarbone was visible beneath the open collar of his shirt. His nose had been broken and apparently left unset; it was crooked, and when Han smiled at him Luke could see that one of his front teeth had been broken nearly in half, and a couple of others were missing. His hair was streaked with grey, and Luke had spent a good part of the evening trying to decide if he was simply drunk, or trying to disguise a limp. He looked like hell warmed over, but he was still Han.

Luke picked up the cup; it was full of a hot brown liquid that smelled – suspiciously, he thought – of nothing at all. "What is it?"

"Old Corellian recipe." Han took another sip of his, as if to prove that there was nothing wrong with it. "I promise, nothing in there that your mother wouldn't approve of."

Luke didn't especially want to think about his mother right now. He took a sip and grimaced. Some things, he guessed, were the same on every planet. Despite the lack of smell, it tasted like nothing so much as the homemade cough medicine Aunt Beru used to boil up when he was a kid.

"Not bad," he lied.

Han raised an eyebrow and gave him a half-smile, showing off that broken tooth again. Luke looked away. Whatever Han had been through, whoever had actually done it to him…Vader had been the one behind it. He was lying about more than the drink, was lying just by being here. If Han ever found out….

"Hey, Luke? You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah…" He leaned his elbows on the table, and felt more than saw it when Han's gaze settled on the space where his hand should have been.

"I talked to General Dodonna."

Luke looked up, not sure if he wanted to hear where this was going.

"He wants you back, you know. As a pilot."

"Han, I can't…"

"Sure you can. You flew here, didn't you? I don't know how the hell you did it…but you don't belong here, kid. You –"

"Yes." Luke stood and turned away, suddenly unable to look at his friend. "Yes I do."

"Look," Han continued. "I get it. You need some time to…to do whatever this is you're doing."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah?" Han was angry; Luke could feel the frustration rolling off of him as clearly as he could hear it in his voice, and it made his stomach turn. "Yeah, well I do. It was Vader, kid. Vader. There was nothing you could have done!"

"What do you know about it?" Luke shook his head, immediately regretting what he'd said. He guessed that, by now, Han knew what Vader was capable of almost as well as he did.

"Enough!" He could hear Han take a deep breath and knew that he was trying, at least, to calm down. "Enough to know that it won't matter if you dig up another lightsaber. It won't be the one you lost. You know that, right?"

"I don't want the one I lost."

Han didn't seem to have an answer for that.

"I have to go back."

"You'll die."

Luke nodded. "I know. It doesn't matter. I have to face him again."

He thought for a moment that the rest of it would come spilling out then, that he would tell Han everything…about Vader, and Yoda, and Ben, and everything. But to his surprise, Han didn't ask. When Luke looked up he was still sitting at the table, tapping one finger on the edge of his cup and nodding, as calmly as if he were contemplating the merits of a business transaction.

He looked up at Luke, and his ruined features held no trace of a smile. "We'll take the _Falcon_."

"Han, no. I –"

"I can't speak for Chewie, but –"

"This isn't about you."

Han slammed his fist into the table. "Shut up and listen, kid. We're all gonna die, sooner or later. And for you and me, I'd put my money on sooner. I'll die a happy man, as long as Vader goes down first."

"No." Luke shook his head. If Han went with him…. All he could think of was that impossibly high mountain, and Vader lying in wait at the top. _You can't kill him, and I can't let him kill you._

"As soon as we hear from old Sauvith."

"We won't." Luke wasn't sure about that, exactly, but the old weapon seller hadn't really meant what he said. Luke had felt it. The prospect of finding a lightsaber had excited him – presumably because of the price he must have imagined he could ask – but he hadn't really believed that it was possible. If they did hear from him, Luke imagined that it would only be bad news. As far as he was concerned, this trip could already be counted as a dead end. Except, of course, that he had met Han… that couldn't be coincidence, could it?

"Nothing wrong with keeping your hopes up, kid. Besides…" Han pulled his blaster from its holster and held it up to the light as though he was examining it. "I don't think these things are going to do the trick."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Your Highness?"

Leia jumped. She'd been staring at the computer terminal for what must have been a couple of hours now, and the data on the screen hadn't changed. The young officer who'd come up behind her glanced at it, and she stood, flustered, trying to hide the maintenance file – not because it was important, but because it was not.

"Commander." She had to look at the insignia on his chest. There was a time when she'd known every one of her officers by name as well as by rank, but lately…well, she'd had other things on her mind.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he apologized, "but we've received a transmission from Cor Mannar."

The name was enough to snap Leia out of her funk, at least temporarily, and bring her attention to the matter at hand. "Lando," she whispered, unsure if what she tasted now was fear or relief. A transmission… that didn't necessarily mean bad news, but it might not mean good news either. "What was the report?"

"The mission was a success." Composed as he was, the young commander couldn't help but crack a half-smile. "Gold Squadron will remain at the installation, as well as a minimal sentry. Calrissian and the crew of the _Ardent Wind_ are on their way here for debriefing."

Leia nodded. The _Ardent Wind_ was one of Lando's ships, a freighter that he'd managed to contact before the captain could return to Imperial-occupied Bespin. The thought that it was safe, and that Lando was safe with it, was the first thing she'd had to feel good about since the task force had left.

"Thank you, Commander." Her voice was calm and collected. It hid her true feelings well, and for that Leia was grateful. This wasn't the time or place for a show of relief, not with Han and Luke still…. It was a sobering thought, and it straightened Leia's back and made her hold her chin a little higher. "Do they have an estimated time of arrival?"

"General Dodonna has requested debriefing at eighteen hundred hours."

Leia was back in her element. There was a job to be done, and a timeline in which she had to do it. The Alliance was waiting. People were counting on her, and she tried to focus on that as she made her way through the command center, back to the lift that would take her to her quarters, painfully aware of the fact that those same people now fell silent as she passed, stepping away to give her the same wide berth that they would have given someone in mourning.

As busy as the past few years had kept them, she could not remember a time when she'd been so thoroughly separated from both Han and Luke. As quickly as her real family had been taken from her, a new, unlikely one had sprung into being. Their little family had functioned, out of necessity, as though it was the only way that things had ever been – the only way they could have been. Of course she had always mourned for Alderaan. But to dwell on what she had lost would have meant acknowledging that she was alone. And she had not been alone, as long as her strange little family had been with her.

They'd all had different duties within the Alliance, of course, and there were times when their missions had kept them apart. But there had always been a date to look forward to, or at the very least, a goal that, when accomplished, would give her a few priceless days of rest and warm, thankful reunions. Now.… She stopped at the wooden door to her chamber, resting her hand on it and tracing the endless lines of wood grain with her eyes. She would have traded it for the hellish wastes of Hoth, if doing so meant that there would be more than just an empty, too-big officer's quarters behind that door to welcome her.

Sometimes it felt like she'd just gone back in time, back to when politics and the Alliance had been her entire life. But she'd been a little princess back then – an activist in her own mind, maybe, and certainly her father's daughter, but when her speeches and debates had been done, she'd always had a home to go back to, an entourage of servants, five-course dinners on the table and a closet full of clothes.

She ate her meals in the mess hall now, with the rest of the Alliance, and the uniform she wore had gone a couple of days, at least, without washing. The servants were gone. Some of them had perished on Alderaan, but most had just moved on to other things. It was more important to keep the power running, the facilities maintained, the records in order, than it was to help the princess with her wardrobe. The galaxy simply didn't have the luxury of things like royalty anymore, and for the most part Leia didn't miss it. She'd been perfectly happy to be one of the gang…at least, when there had been a gang to be a part of.

She sat in front of the mirror now and let her hair down, running her fingers through the tangled strands. It was too long, really. Hardly appropriate for a military leader – and that was what she was now, really. There were no courts to preside over here, no formal functions to attend. Not since that ceremony on Yavin. She kept it up all the time anyway, and it wasn't like she had anyone left to run their fingers through it, like her father had when she was a child.

Leia closed her eyes, trying not to see Bail Organa's face for the first time in over three years. Trying not to think about what she had lost. Princess or not, there were still people who looked to her. She was their strength. She had to be. _If the pillar crumbles_, her father had told her, _the palace comes crashing down._ There were enough cracks in the Alliance as it was.

She stood up, and took full account of her reflection in the mirror. _Some pillar._ The woman in the mirror stared back at her with circles under her eyes, and for some reason her own tired expression made her think of Han.

_Did you think I was going to settle down, have a couple of kids, trade the Falcon in for – _

"No." Anger flared in her stomach and colored her cheeks. Han could do whatever he liked, but she wasn't going to let him bring the rest of them down with him. "No," she repeated coolly, wishing that she had been composed enough to find the words at the time. "I never expected _you_ to do anything."

* * *

The briefing room had been built to seat hundreds, but today there were only six observers seated around the ancient holoprojector in the middle of the room. Lando was joined by Wedge Antilles, who had been promoted to commander of Rogue Squadron in Luke's absence, and Leia sat between General Dodonna and Senator Mon Mothma on the opposite side of the projector. The sixth observer was the only one not there by invitation, but Leia hadn't had the heart to tell him no.

"Threepio," she asked, "is the data ready?"

Threepio looked up from the controls he had been examining. "I'm afraid, Your Highness, that it may take some time. This sort of thing is where Artoo excels. _My_ primary function is –"

"Etiquette and protocol," finished Leia.

"Oh… well, yes." There was a note of pride in his voice, and Leia smiled a little in spite of herself. At least there was one member of her little family left on this planet. She met Lando's eyes across the table and thought, _Two, really…_. Han wouldn't like that thought.

"This equipment is quite out of date," the droid continued. "I must admit, I'll be surprised if it is still functioning. Oh!" The air above the holoprojector lit up with a faint bluish light, and a squadron of Y-wings popped into being in the middle of it. "It appears to be working after all."

"Thank you, Threepio. Princess Leia." It was Senator Mothma who spoke next, giving Leia a nod and an unreadable look that made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. She was a politician too, and perhaps more importantly, had known Leia since she was a child. It was unlikely that any of Leia's shields were effective against her quiet gaze. "As you know, our campaign against the Imperial installation at Cor Mannar has been a success. However" – her voice grew quiet and sober – "this recording of the battle has given us cause for concern. It is my belief, as well as the belief of those who were there… that the Empire has deliberately allowed the system to fall into our hands. Administrator Calrissian?"

Leia raised an eyebrow, surprised at the choice of title. Lando didn't have any rank with the Alliance, but he wasn't the administrator of Cloud City anymore either. He gave her an almost imperceptible shrug as he replaced Mothma at the projector. _Well_, Leia thought, _if I'm a princess, and she's a senator…._

"As you can see," Lando began, "this is the data tape from the _Ardent Wind_'s recording system." He pressed a button on the console, and the formerly static Y-Wings sprung to life. Their formation was a standard one; Leia didn't know the official name for it, but she'd seen it used in recordings of other campaigns. There didn't seem to be anything unusual about the Alliance's tactics, at least.

"The first wave of defenders came quickly, as though they'd had warning of the attack." A group of TIE Fighters appeared at the edge of the projection and swept toward the attacking Gold Squadron. "Wedge and his Rogues arrived just in time, and thanks to them we sustained minimal casualties." This was punctuated by the silent explosion of one of the Rogue Squadron X-Wings, and she saw Wedge bow his head for a moment in respect.

Leia and the others watched as the orbital space station that had been their primary target came into view. Another wave of fighters streamed from the station, but there seemed to be even fewer than before, and they only managed to take out a single Alliance ship before they were wiped out. The station was equipped with four large gun turrets, but they were bulky and slow, and Dodonna had assigned some of his most experienced pilots to this assault. They maneuvered deftly through the storm of laser blasts, and within a matter of minutes had boarded the station.

"That's it?" Forgetting protocol, Leia blurted out exactly what she was thinking.

Mothma answered. "You can understand our concern. Administrator Calrissian, this was not your first visit to Cor Mannar."

"No." Lando had apparently made that run a few times, back in his smuggling days. It was a big part of the reason the Alliance had asked him to go along in the first place. "But I've never seen that station without a Star Destroyer or two hanging around."

Dodonna shook his head. "It's unlikely that they were unaware of the assault."

"I agree." The image of the space station vanished as Lando removed the data tape and inserted another. "Especially after what we found on board. This security footage was taken during the attack." He activated the display again, and this time the image was of an Alliance soldier, making his way through what appeared to be some sort of operating room. If there had been any combat personnel in the room, they had either left or fallen before this man arrived; he was threatened only by an aging man in an officer's uniform who failed to get off a single shot before he went down. The soldier seemed to be watching his step carefully, though what exactly was hindering his progress could not be seen in the recording. At last, he reached the main viewport, still looking down, and a shocked expression came over his face. He opened his mouth; there was no sound, but Leia knew that he was shouting, and a holographic Lando rushed across the room to meet him.

"The commanding officer was dead before we arrived. Strangled, by the looks of it." He looked Leia squarely in the eye, and she knew that he was thinking the same thing that she was.

"Vader."

"Most likely."

"The Empire wants us in the Core," Dodonna mused.

"Yes." Senator Mothma nodded to Lando, who returned to his seat with a grim expression. "The question now becomes why."

The image of the soldier dissolved into a starfield, which in turn was magnified into a map of the systems immediately surrounding Cor Mannar. "These," Mothma continued, "are the systems to which we now have facilitated access. Some of them are certainly of value to us, but the question as to why the Empire would want to allow that access remains. Princess Leia?"

"Yes?"

"I want to you look into every one of these systems. Any information may help. I can't help but feel that our forces are in great danger."

Leia looked up at the star map – a hundred possible answers, and none of them seemed to fit. Kyara. Vanir. Telmanar. She couldn't think of a single reason why the Empire would want to lure them to any of these worlds.

"Keep the fleet out of the Core for now," she said. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

* * *

**A/N: **First of all, let me say another big THANK YOU to all of my readers and reviewers. I've replied to all of the reviews that I can, but I absolutely appreciate my anonymous reviews and all of those hits from people who haven't reviewed, but are still reading after 13 chapters too. You all give me warm fuzzies. Thank you!

Also, to assuage any fears...this story (or a draft of it anyway) is actually finished. I'm not completely happy with some of the later chapters, and I'll have them up one at a time as soon as they are betaed and edited to my satisfaction. But please don't worry about this being abandoned. Thank you for your continued support!


	14. Chapter 14

Luke watched the sun rise over the spaceport, reflected in a thousand minds' eyes until even the pale, washed-out light that struggled through the clouds seemed almost too bright to bear. Carnival had ended days ago, and the air of irresponsible revelry had been replaced by one that reminded him in a different way of Mos Eisley and of the home he'd left behind. The dawn brought hope to the people he watched, but it was faint, buried under whispers of despair that built on one another until they became a roar. Luke tried to listen, to hear what they were trying to tell him, but his efforts were halfhearted. His head was pounding. His back and shoulders ached, and his eyes were gritty and dry. He had hardly slept since he'd been on Kurakae, and it was starting to feel like he'd spent the better part of a lifetime here, in the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon_.

He had tried to familiarize himself with the spaceport at first, making the necessary trips back to the X-Wing to retrieve Artoo and the few other practical supplies he'd brought with him and venturing back into the city to buy what he had not. But there were too many people here, too much noise, and whether it was perception or paranoia, Luke couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. He stayed on the ship now, watching the shadows and feeling the eyes of the city prickle like sparks in the darkness.

Even now, the _Falcon_ had drawn the attention of a young man – a spaceport mechanic – who looked up at her from below, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. Luke focused; saw the ship as it must have looked in the mechanic's eyes. He felt a twinge of passing interest…but that was all. They were strangers here, all of them, the ship included, and as such they attracted attention. If there was any more to it than that, it was lost in a web of tenuous connections, the jumble of consciousness all around him and the darker, omnipresent chill that had driven him from bed in the first place.

_Vader._

The thought made his hand start to itch, and he rubbed absently his stump. It didn't hurt as much as it had, he thought, although he wasn't sure if the weird burning sensations were actually getting better or if it was just that he was too tired, too frustrated and to used to them to care. Maybe it was just that, with Han and Chewie around, he had more to take his mind off of them.

_Han. Chewie._ He could feel his friends now, stirring in the darkness of the crew quarters. Han, shivering as the remnants of his own nightmares fell away. Chewie, alert in an instant and worried. He called out in the Wookiee tongue, and while the words were almost as much of a mystery to Luke as they'd been three years ago, he understood the sentiment perfectly.

"I'm up here, Chewie! I'm all right."

It was Han's footsteps, and not Chewie's, that he heard in the corridor. "Couldn't sleep, huh?"

"You too?"

"Hey, you know me." Han fell into the pilot's chair with a forced nonchalance that matched his tone of voice perfectly. "I'm just looking out for you, kid."

"…Thanks."

"So…whatcha doing up here?"

Luke shrugged. "Just…watching the city, I guess."

"Not much to see." Han paused. "…You dream about him too?"

This took Luke by surprise. He saw Han's dreams, sometimes. The cold, the dark, the pain. Brushing up against Luke's own memories and…resonating. He wondered if Han could see his dreams too, or if he was just making an educated guess. Maybe it was just that obvious.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Sometimes." _Every night_. But he couldn't say that, even if it was true.

"Well, we'll be out of here soon enough, and then –"

"Good." Luke spoke too quickly, and it only sounded more childish and unnatural when he tried to cover it up. "I – I don't like it here."

Han smirked. "What's there to like?"

"I think we should leave."

"Hey, not so fast, kid." Han was trying hard to keep his tone light, but Luke could feel the confusion, the anger, and above all the sickening worry that had been all over him and Chewie ever since they'd ran into each other in that bar. "This is _my_ business associate we're talking about here."

Luke shook his head. "He's not gonna come through."

"He will."

"I don't…" Luke closed his eyes. There was something there… something dark and rotten and…

"What?"

"I can't…" _I can't _see_._ "I don't know what it is, Han. I just…have a bad feeling about this." His hand was itching. Aching. Screaming, even though it wasn't even there.

"You sure you're okay, kid?"

"I'm fine!" Luke snapped. He hadn't meant to. "I'm all right. It's just…someone's watching me. Watching us. The ship. I don't…I don't know."

He waited for Han to make some sarcastic remark about the Force, but he didn't. He just kept staring straight ahead, out into the dawn that was breaking over the spaceport. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"You got it." Han stood and turned as if to leave, but he didn't take a step. "We're out of here. But we talk to Sauvith first."

Luke didn't know what to say to that. Han was right. It had been his idea to come here, his idea to look for a lightsaber in the spaceport underworld. And maybe he did need a weapon; maybe Han was right about that too. But Luke was pretty sure he wasn't going to find one here.

"Han," he began.

"I shot him."

That was the last response Luke had been expecting. "What?"

"Vader. I shot him, on Bespin. And he just… stopped it. Blocked it. I don't know. I didn't miss!" Han turned around, and Luke could see the plea in his eyes. "I didn't miss. He was right there. He just put up his hand and…absorbed it, or something. Ripped the damn blaster right out of my hand."

"The Force."

"Yeah."

"I…" Luke hesitated. He hadn't talked about what had happened on Bespin, not with Leia, not with anyone. He took a deep breath, and then the words came out in a rush. "I hit him too."

"You did? Did you hurt him?"

"A little. I think. I don't know, after that he…."

"Hey…" Han stepped forward, and for a moment Luke was afraid that he was going to touch him. "It's okay." He looked pointedly at what was left of Luke's right arm. "I, uh…I think I get the picture."

His absent hand throbbed, and Luke covered the stump with his left hand, self-conscious but at the same time perversely grateful for the injury. Let everyone think that this was what was bothering him. They were half right, anyway, and if they ever knew what else Vader had taken from him….

A concerned roar echoed in the corridor, and Luke forced a smile onto his face. Chewie had been in the galley every morning since they'd been here, trying to find something that would counter the effects of field rations, hospital food, and in Han's case – he strongly suspected – weeks of nothing at all. It wasn't any different from flying halfway across the galaxy with one hand, or pulling the _Falcon_ apart for no reason other than to put it back together. Chewie was doing what they all were doing, just trying to put things back the way they had been, to pretend that they were still who they had been, and that the _Falcon_ was still home.

"Think you can eat?" Luke looked up at Han, trying to pretend that the answer even mattered. That he even had a right to ask the question, or to be on this ship in the first place.

"Yeah, sure," Han mumbled, as if he hadn't really heard the question. "Chewie! Are we ready to take off?"

With that, he headed down the corridor to the galley, but Luke lingered for a moment in the cockpit. He had spent so many nights here, in the glorious days after Yavin when it had seemed they could conquer the world. It had been home, because they had all needed it to be. But now…the ship felt different. Wrong. Han had told him that Lando had fixed it, rewired it, and the hatred with which he'd said it had been palpable enough to push even the prying eyes of the city from Luke's mind. Maybe that was it. He had hardly been paying attention to the inner workings of the ship when it had carried him from Bespin, and before that…it had been months, at least, since he'd even been on the _Falcon_. Maybe it had always had those weird dead ends, connections that seemed to lead to something but that never quite came alive. Like some kind of modification that had been started and never finished. But that didn't seem like Han. Didn't really seem like Lando, either.

There was another cry from the galley, and this one Luke understood well – it was the closest thing to his name that Wookiee vocal chords could manage, underscored by a kind of paternal concern that Chewbacca probably would have worked harder to hide if he'd known how strongly Luke could sense it. "I'm coming, Chewie!" he called, and he put the cockpit behind him.

"All right, I'm eating!" Han held up his hands in mock surrender and took another bite of whatever kind of fish Chewie had brought back from the marina the day before. He was frustrated, and it showed in the lines on his face as clearly as it did in the ripples he made in the Force.

"Hey, Chewie." The words were muffled as Luke found himself enveloped in a hairy Wookiee hug. Han snorted, but Luke knew that he didn't really disapprove, and he found himself playing along. A couple of years ago, all of this – the hug and the breakfast and the general concern – would have annoyed him at least a little. But now that Worrying About Luke was just about the only thing Han and Chewie seemed to agree on….

"All right, ya big softie. Let him go."

Chewie growled, but he did as he was told.

"Are we ready to leave or not? No," Han cut Chewie off before he had a chance to finish his response. "I don't care about the thermostat in the cargo hold. Can we take off?"

Luke wanted to tell him that something was wrong with the ship, but he didn't. What could he have said? This wasn't like Echo Base, wasn't like Uncle Owen's condensers. Then, he had known what was wrong and what could be done to fix it. This… this was just a feeling. Besides, if he brought it up, Han might decide to pull the whole ship apart again, and then…. A shiver ran down his back. No. It was more important to get out of here, and to make sure that Han and Chewie went with him.

"All right." Han pushed his plate away; he'd barely touched the food. "We go see Sauvith first, see if a couple thousand credits'll motivate him."

Chewie shook his head, obviously not thrilled with that idea, but Han wasn't going to be swayed on this.

"We need this, Chewie. Yes, I know what I always said about the old man! I take it back, all right? Luke…Luke _hurt_ him, Chewie. He hurt Vader."

Chewie managed to roll concern, admiration, and disbelief into a single warbling syllable.

"It wasn't like that," Luke explained. "It didn't… stop him, or anything."

"Yeah? Well, it was a hell of a lot more than I could do."

Han stood, and Luke watched him go, knowing that he wasn't going to find what he was looking for, but also knowing that there wasn't anything he could do to stop him from trying.

* * *

Han had spent a lot of time on this planet, back in the day, and even when he hadn't had business in its less-than-legitimate back office, he'd spent a fair number of hours in that old Sabacc hall. Morning or night, Carnival season or tax time, it had always enjoyed a decent business. Today, it was almost deserted, and the owner – usually apathetic, if not exactly cordial – gave Han and Chewie a dirty look as they entered. "He's not here," the old man hissed, and the clear implication was that anyone looking for Sauvith would be better off going back to wherever they'd come from.

"Where is he?" Han tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that was starting to grow in the part of his gut that just _knew_ when it was time to fold.

"Not here."

"It's important."

He felt the cold butt of a blaster pressed against the back of his neck, and the old man stepped back, shrugging as if to say, "I told you so."

"Get out of here, Solo." It was a female voice, one that he'd heard before but couldn't readily place. One of Sauvith's women, he assumed.

He heard a roar, felt the swipe of a paw and then the woman was pressed up against the wall, the blaster flying halfway across the room. She was bleeding, but it wasn't Chewie who had hurt her. The wound was old, to judge by the color of the blood, and badly dressed with a dirty cloth that had half-fallen over one eye. Han knew her, or at least he knew her face, and it wasn't the kind of face that he would have ever expected to see so twisted in misery and fear.

"It's for your own good!" she spat and inched back, even though there was nowhere behind her to go. Chewie hadn't moved his hand from her throat. He growled a question that Han didn't expect her to understand.

"Where's Sauvith?" It wasn't a direct translation, but he figured he'd get better results with that than with Chewie's version. "What happened?"

The woman shook her head. Her whole body was trembling.

"Chewie, let her go. Chewie!"

"See for yourself," she gasped. Han couldn't tell if it was sweat running down her face, or tears. "See what you and your Jedi friend…." She said _Jedi_ like it was _hellspawn_, and Han didn't stick around for the rest of the sentiment.

The hall patrons, sparse as they were, followed him with their eyes as he stormed through the room, back to the soundproof, blastproof door that had sometime since his last visit been stained with the residue of blaster fire. There was no one to guard it. Chewie pushed Han out of the way and swung the slab of steel out of the way with his bare hands. In the split second before his eyes could confirm it, the Wookiee's cry told Han everything he needed to know.

The bodies were stiff, the blood on the floor dried. The room had been ravaged.

"Yeah." Han nodded; Chewie's appraisal of the situation was pretty accurate, as far as he could see. "I think I can guess what they were looking for. Hey!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sauvith's woman, creeping slowly across the floor to the doorway. "Where do you think you're going?"

She scrambled to her feet, but Han was faster. He grabbed her roughly by the collar, and her bandages fell to the floor. They were covered with blood, but the wound beneath them was superficial, and at least a few days old. She was virtually unharmed, and probably at least as strong as he was. It was just his dumb luck that, for whatever reason, her hatred for Luke didn't appear, at least at this moment, to extend to him.

"They let me go because I talked." She lowered her voice; Han wasn't sure whether she'd spoken loud enough for anyone else to hear.

"Who?" He felt her shake, knew that it was his hands that were doing it, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. "Who did this? Who let you go?"

"You tell me." She wrapped a calloused hand around Han's wrist and gave it a sharp twist…right there, right against the bone in the same place where Jabba's guard had cracked it with a metal rod and then forced it back into the manacles. The world flashed red, and he fell onto one knee, never taking his eyes from her face. She could have done that all along, could probably kill him and Chewie right now if it suited her. "I didn't exactly stop to take names."

"Vader."

The woman blanched. If it was true – and Han had no reason to doubt his own instincts on this one – she hadn't been lying. She really hadn't known, which at least meant that it hadn't been Vader himself who had been here.

Han rose to his feet, the pain in his wrist forgotten or at least overshadowed by the mad calculations that his mind was struggling to make. How had Vader found them here? What was he looking for? Why kill the old dealer instead of just taking what he wanted? And _had _he taken it? Had there been anything there to take? It didn't really matter now. If they stayed here much longer, something much nastier was going to find them. Find Luke.

"Come on, Chewie." He ran out into the city, not needing to look back to know that his first mate was right behind him. "We've gotta get back to the ship."

* * *

Luke saw what Han saw, felt what Han felt, and in that one crimson instant, he thought that he even caught a word.

_Vader._

Han was afraid. He could sense it. Not afraid for himself – Han was never afraid for himself, not anymore – but afraid for Luke. Luke wished that he could tell him that there was no reason to worry. Vader wasn't here, and even if he was…he wasn't going to hurt them. Not now, anyway. Not before he had his son, standing before him of his own free will.

"Artoo?"

The reply was distant; Artoo had been running diagnostics in the maintenance bay, and apparently he wasn't finished yet.

"No, stay there!" Luke called. He was already on his way back to the cockpit. "How soon can we take off?"

The _Falcon_ had been designed for a crew of at least two, and Luke had never taken her through the startup sequence without Han. But he had Artoo, and he had the Force. And for the first time in days, there was no one around to notice or care if he used it.

The sublight engines rumbled into life, and the electricity coursing through the ship felt just as good as warm energy rushing into his own body. A blast of stale air hit him in the face as the life support systems came online. It smelled like the _Falcon_. Luke smiled at the thought. It was silly that something like that should matter, but it did.

"Artoo?" He settled into the pilot's seat and called into the ship's internal comlink. "Can you give me a reading for the hyperdrive?" A flood of information spilled onto the cockpit monitor. "All right. Are you done with that diagnostic?"

Negative. Not yet. But Han and Chewie were on their way; they didn't have much time.

"Abort it for now, then."

Artoo squealed, obviously not happy with the idea of his work going to waste.

"I know, I know. Can you get back to the ship on your own?"

The reply was a hesitant affirmative.

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

He waited until he was alone, and then he let himself stretch out into the sky. _Father._ There. The Vader-spot was where it had always been, dark and pulsing and always, always, calling to him. Not on this planet. Not here. _You want me to run. Why?_

Heavy footsteps on the landing ramp were the only reply. "Chewie, get the engines going!" Han's voice echoed in the hallway. "Luke! Where are you!"

"I'm here!" he called back, and his words were drowned out by Chewie's call.

"What do you mean we're ready to leave? All right, then, change of plans. Hey!" Han grabbed Luke by the arm and forced him to take a step back into the cockpit. "Where you do think you're going?"

His tone wasn't exactly unfriendly, but it took Luke by surprise. "Back to my ship. I – I thought we were getting out of here."

Han yelled over his shoulder, "Hey, Chewie! Get that X-Wing out of here, would you?" He turned back to Luke. "Where's Artoo?"

"I sent him back to the ship. What's going on?"

"Vader." His voice was black. "Sit down, kid. Looks like you're my new co-pilot."

"Han, I can fly."

"Never said you couldn't. Chewie! Get out of here! Come on, baby…."

The Falcon rumbled and purred as she lifted off, rapidly rendering the city and its denizens dolls and then miniatures and then little more than specks as she pushed up towards the mesosphere with a speed that forced Luke into the co-pilot's seat with a combination of G-forces and good old-fashioned shock. The roar of the city faded to a buzz and then into a barely audible hum, and he could see Han and the ship around him in sharp relief, coming into focus after what felt like a long sleep.

The com system crackled into life, and Chewie's voice resounded in the cockpit.

"He's got Artoo," Han translated, and then pushed the button that would allow him to respond. "Thanks, Chewie. You got the coordinates?"

Chewie apparently did.

"Meet you at the rendezvous point, then. No, I don't know where we're going from there. Got a couple of things to ask our resident Jedi first." He glanced at Luke out of the corner of his eye, and Luke had the sinking feeling that that last comment hadn't exactly been for Chewbacca's benefit.

"Han…" he began, but before he could figure out exactly what it was that he wanted to say, the ship's alarms began to blare, and the control panel erupted into a flurry of red lights.

"Save it for hyperspace, kid. Boost the deflectors!"

Luke hesitated just for the moment that it took him to remember to do it with his hand, and not with the Force. Vader was far away, but if he'd had any doubts about his father's part in what had happened here, they were erased by the sight of an Imperial Star Destroyer growing rapidly over the horizon.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Captain Onver Bernat was nothing if not a patient man. He had bided his time at the Academy, waiting for the right chance to impress the right instructor, which had led to a post-graduation assignment to one of the most elite fighter squadrons of the day. As a pilot, he had been cautious, building a career out of moderate victories and measured successes, until the Battle of Savaa had propelled him directly into his first command. He had risen slowly through the ranks, winning at last what he had thought to be the greatest prize in the Empire: the command of his very own Star Destroyer.

The _Persecutor_. It was a fine name, he thought, and a shame that she had had so few opportunities to live up to it. She had seen little these past three years but a string of escort and reconnaissance missions and perennial assignments to the garrisons of Rim worlds that seemed hardly worth the Emperor's time. But Bernat had bided his time here, too, and it seemed that his patience was finally going to pay off.

"Captain?" The deck officer looked up at him with expectant eyes, and Bernat directed his attention to the scanners. This was the moment he had been waiting for.

"Two ships."

"Yes, sir."

Bernat swallowed hard. "Let the X-Wing go." He hated to say it. He knew who that ship belonged to, and what heavy losses that single man had inflicted on his beloved Empire. Still, orders were orders; he would have to trust that whatever Lord Vader had in store for Luke Skywalker, it would be worse than anything even the _Persecutor_'s lasers could deliver. "Focus your fire on the _Millennium Falcon_."

The speck in the corner of the viewscreen grew and took the shape of a modified Corellian freighter. It was a shape that the entire deck crew – the entire Imperial fleet – knew well, and the collective sound of a dozen drawn breaths was not lost on Bernat's sharp ears. His men knew what this meant, every one of them. He would not let them waste their chance to rise above this Outer Rim post and to draw the attention of Lord Vader and – dare he hope? – perhaps even the Emperor himself.

"Permission to fire, sir?" The gunner raised expectant eyes, and Bernat shook his head slowly. Patiently. They must not miss. They must not allow the prey a chance to escape.

Bernat did not know what Captain Han Solo looked like, but he thought that he could imagine the expression on the man's face as he noticed the threat, jerking his ship violently to one side. He would draw no closer now, and Bernat gave the order that he had been waiting for, without knowing it, his entire career. Lord Vader had ordered surveillance, but Captain Bernat – soon to be _Admiral_ Bernat? – would give him far more.

"Fire at will."

The _Millennium Falcon_ rocked as the first blast hit, and the scanners reflected a noticeable weakening of the enemy's deflector shields.

"Captain?"

"Yes?" Bernat smiled as the gunner fired again. A near miss, but it was of no matter. The little ship didn't stand a chance against his proud _Persecutor_, against the finest crew and the finest captain in the galaxy.

The deck officer's next line was right on cue: "Lord Vader wishes to speak with you immediately."

He wondered if the promotion would come before the award ceremony or after.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Han swore under his breath. This was just like his luck, to take him out of the frying pan and into the sights of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

"Hey, kid." He glanced at Luke. "You okay over there?" This arrangement was already starting to seem like a bad idea; Han didn't know what he'd been thinking, sending Chewie off alone like that. Sure, Luke had been a decent pilot, once upon a time, but now he was sitting over there with a vacant look on his face, staring straight through the ship like it wasn't even there.

He took a long time to answer, and even when he did Han wasn't really sure that he'd heard the question. "This is wrong," he whispered. "He wants me alive."

Then the first blast hit. Han rolled the ship, hard and on a diagonal that he knew would be hard for a standard Imperial targeting system to follow. The alarms were wailing. It had been a direct hit, or pretty damn close, and Han didn't have to look too closely at the readings to know that the front deflectors were half gone. He gritted his teeth. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. See if you can't get some more power to the front shields."

Another blast streaked by, narrowly missing the sensor array and sending the instruments into a temporary flurry of brightly colored static. Han's response was instinctive. He doubled back into a U-turn and streamed away from the Star Destroyer as quickly as he'd come. _Stay calm._ This wasn't a fight. All he had to do was buy the computer time to calculate the jump, and then they'd be out of here.

Another hit. The shields held, but red lights were flashing all over the board. "Rear deflectors at forty percent." Luke sounded like he didn't even care.

Han glared at the navicomputer. Still calculating. At this rate….

The cockpit lights flickered as another blast tossed the ship aside. The sirens howled; the rear deflectors were completely gone.

"Hold on, kid," Han muttered, although Luke didn't really seem like the one who needed reassuring. "I'll get us out of this." There was nothing else to do. He pulled the ship down – or at least, in the direction that seemed the most like down at this particular moment, speeding toward the underbelly of the Star Destroyer where at least the most powerful turret guns couldn't reach. If all else failed, he supposed he could latch onto them like he had in that asteroid field.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing?" Han scowled at his apparently apathetic co-pilot, but Luke was still staring at some empty spot out in space. It gave Han the chills. Who the hell was the kid talking to?

"Han!"

And then they were falling. No, not falling, but _free_falling, drifting in space like an oversized lump of detritus. A wave of what looked like blue lightning crackled over the controls and into the navicomputer, rendering it silent, and the cockpit went dark. In and of itself, that wasn't too much of a problem; Han could have flown this hunk of junk blind…if, that is, any of the controls were responding. "Ion blast," he muttered. "They might as well have put us out of our misery. Come on!"

He slammed his fist into the controls, and got nothing but a little pain and a lot of silence for his troubles. He glanced over at Luke. In the reddish glow of the emergency lighting he couldn't make out much more than a shadowy profile, and he figured that was probably a good thing. He'd probably want to punch that blank expression if he could actually see it. "Got any bright ideas over there? No?" He tugged on the stick again, expecting nothing and getting exactly the same.

"Give me the controls."

Han jumped. He hadn't even heard Luke get to his feet, and now he was here, breathing down Han's neck in the darkness. It stirred a claustrophobic memory and all the hair on his body seemed to stand simultaneously on end. "Controls are dead," he said, and it came out a dry whisper.

"Han. Give me the controls."

He used the same flat, expressionless voice as he had before, but there was something urgent in those four words. Han knew was a stupid idea. Luke had never even flown the _Falcon_ before – even if he'd asked, Han never would have let him. Hero of the Rebellion or not, he wasn't much more than a crippled farmboy who, if you asked Han, might not be exactly right in the head these days, either.

And yet, Han found himself standing, walking away, settling into Chewie's seat as if it made as much sense as anything he'd ever done. "Why not?" he said. They'd be dead either way. "Knock yourself out."

The scanners were as dead as the rest of the ship; Han couldn't see the X-Wing, but he didn't know if that meant Chewie had gotten away, or if he was just being pulverized on the other side of the hulking destroyer that now occupied most of the viewscreen. He wondered if he would make it back to base, and if he did, if there would be anyone to translate for him, to help him tell Leia what had happened. He wondered if she'd cry for him when she heard, and decided that she probably wouldn't. Maybe for Luke. Probably not at all. _Yeah, well, it's probably better that way. Help her…I dunno. Move on. Or something._

Luke was breathing hard. Either that, or it was just so damn quiet in here that his breathing sounded like a snoring Bantha. He'd mumble something, now and again, but none of it sounded very much like words. All in all, it was starting to creep Han out, and he found himself weighing the benefits and risks of telling the kid to shut up and leave the damn ship alone. It might mean dying without a friend in the universe – he wasn't quite sure where he stood with Chewie anymore – but on the other hand, at least he'd be able to die in peace and quiet.

Han looked over at the only friend he had left. Luke was staring through that Star Destroyer like he could see all the people inside. Hell, if he was anything like Kenobi and…and Vader, maybe he could. His mouth was half-open, and beads of sweat were pouring down his face, even though the temperature in the cockpit was starting to fall. His hands flew over the controls, flipping dark switches and pressing dead buttons as though he just expected them to up and respond, and…hell, the kid really had gone off the deep end. If Han had forgotten for a moment that he only _had_ one hand, that Vader had taken the other as some kind of twisted down payment for the lives he was about to collect on now, he couldn't really blame himself. Because Luke had apparently forgotten that fact as well.

But where Luke placed his hands, the console had started to flicker and hum. Lights danced blue and white and gold beneath his fingers, and he was doing just as much work with his right hand as with his left. Han watched in stunned silence as the navicomputer rebooted itself and started, somehow – Luke had never even touched it – to recalculate the jump into hyperspace.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Star Destroyer start to move.

"Luke?"

Luke mumbled something, but Han was pretty sure that it hadn't been directed at him.

"Luke! We're caught in a tractor beam!"

"Father…"

What the hell the kid's dead father had to do with this, Han didn't know and didn't care. But unless he could manage to make the jump to hyperspace straight out of the tractor beam's pull, they stood a pretty good chance of meeting up with him before the day was out. "Luke! Snap out of it!"

"Father, please!"

Han had had enough. The controls for the hyperdrive were accessible enough from the co-pilot's chair; more often than not, Chewie was the one to make the jump anyway. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, and pulled back on the lever that would either save their lives or damage the ship beyond repair.

And then the Star Destroyer, which had been steadily growing to block out more and more of the sky…just stopped. Luke fell back into the pilot's seat. His eyes were closed and his breathing ragged; Han wasn't entirely sure that he was conscious.

The navicomputer whined at him. Even though they were out of the tractor beam, its safety protocols weren't going to let him make the jump, not until it was done with what it had to do. "Luke?" Maybe he could jump start it, or something. "Luke?" Or maybe he was going to have to take a detour to the nearest medical center.

The computer trilled triumphantly. Luke's eyes fluttered open, and a smile stretched across his face as hyperspace finally, mercifully, swallowed them whole. "See?" He sounded almost like his old self again. "I told you I could fly."

Flying wasn't really the word for it, Han thought, but he didn't have time to argue about it. "Yeah, great, kid. Remind me to thank you sometime."

* * *

Luke was lying down in his bunk in the crew quarters, not because he felt sick or even especially tired, but just because Han had recommended it, and because he needed time to figure out exactly what had just happened, and how he was going to explain it.

Vader had saved their lives. There was no doubt about that. There was also no doubt that, regardless of who had actually pulled the trigger, he had been directly responsible for the deaths of Sauvith and his bodyguards. _He wants me alive. Alive and unarmed._ It wasn't a realization so much as a confirmation of what he had already known.

Worse than that, though, was what he had done, and what he had seen in his mind's eye as he did it. Vader had saved him before – or spared him, at least, and when he'd had him cornered with a lightsaber in front of him and a seemingly endless chasm behind, it amounted to the same thing. But Luke had never begged for his life on Bespin. He'd expected to die, and a part of him would have welcomed it. If he had been at Vader's mercy, at least he hadn't been there willingly, and in the end, the choice that he'd made had been his own.

This…this had been different. He had called out to Vader, not the other way around. He had bowed, not with his body but with his being, to the will of his father and pleaded for mercy. And he had gotten it.

Luke knew that his plea had cost a man his life. He had seen it as clearly as if he had been on the bridge of that Star Destroyer himself: Vader's rage, the captain's proud denial, the confused suffering that had twisted a little part of the Force until it snapped, and the death that cut through the fabric of the universe like tiny shards of glass – painful but ultimately insignificant. It sickened him now to think about it, but at the time that little burst of agony had been fleeting and unimportant next to what he had seen – what Vader had shown him – next.

He tried to remember it now, tried to replay the details and to remember not only what it had looked like but what he had felt. Vader had been with him, in him, and the captain's death had been distorted through a dark veil of anger and betrayal. The _Falcon_ had been so large and so heavy around him…not physically heavy but too complex, too much to hold in a mind that was overwhelmed with emotion. But the ship was what had mattered, and he had forced himself to cling to the shorted, guttering connections even at the expense of what felt like his humanity. There was power in the ship, but it was misfiring in every direction. He'd had to make his choices without thinking, throwing energy at the things that mattered, the hyperdrive and the navicomputer and the life support system, and half-activating a handful of others by accident along the way.

Some systems had welcomed the intrusion, took the energy he fed them as greedily and as easily as though it were the only power source they had ever known. Others sputtered and sparked, fighting him every step of the way. Luke had seen the connections, and struggled to hold them all, to map them all to their ends and to see which ones led to Chewie, to the rendezvous point, and to safety. It was the future – no, many futures – that he saw, each one as vague and as ephemeral as the ionized energy, and as difficult to hold. He tuned them all out. The faces, the voices, the sights and the sounds. None of them would matter if he couldn't get the ship out of here in one piece. And then, just as he found his goal, as the computer made its own connections and hyperspace swept Vader's ominous presence away, he saw something that he could not tune out.

He saw the _Falcon_, going up in flames.

It had been over in an instant, too brief and too powerful for him to know whether it had even been a legitimate vision. There had been so many futures…but this one had been different, somehow – a threat or a warning from Vader? Han's fear, or his own?

And then he'd been back in the cockpit, confused and exhausted and just far enough on this side of sanity to make an inappropriate comment that probably hadn't helped the situation. He had seen the look in Han's eyes, heard the bitter sarcasm in his voice and he knew what it meant. It was the same as Yoda's grim warnings, the same as Uncle Owen's anger. Han was afraid, and he had every right to be.

The door opened. "Hey, kid." That old nickname again, more of a lie now than it had ever been. "How you doing?"

"Not bad."

"Yeah…" Han hesitated before taking a seat on the opposite bunk. "That's good. I, uh…we're on our way to the rendezvous point, so…it'll be a couple of hours."

Luke sat up as well. He could have played the invalid card, pretended he was too tired to be having this conversation now, but he thought he owed it to Han to explain at least some of what was going on.

"Chewie got out of there okay." It wasn't much of an opening, but it was just about the only thing he had in the way of good news.

Han's expression was one of relief, but his posture remained tense. On edge. "So you can just…feel that stuff, then? Like Kenobi?"

"Yeah."

"Since when?" It sounded like an accusation.

"I don't know." Luke twisted the edge of the blanket around his fingertips, grinding the rough wool against his hand until it almost hurt. "Since forever, maybe. But…"

"Not like this."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Not like this."

"You do realize this is suicide, right? Going after Vader?"

Luke looked up, looked Han square in the eyes and he was half sure that Han could see everything that had happened to him, everything that he was and everything that he had almost decided that he didn't want to hide anymore. "I don't care if I die. This is…I can't explain it. I have to face him. I understand if you don't want to come…."

"Don't be a martyr, kid. Look, he hurt you. He hurt Leia. I can't just…."

"Since when?"

"Since when?" Han echoed. "What are you talking about?"

Luke felt his eyes grow wide as the realization spread over him. It shouldn't have even mattered anymore, but…. "You and Leia. Since when?"

"There is no me and Leia, kid." Han shifted uncomfortably, and Luke wasn't sure how much of the sadness and passion and regret he was feeling came from Han, and how much of it was his own. "Relax. You come out of this alive, she's all yours."

Luke didn't know what to say to that. Han meant what he said, or at least he was trying to. But he hadn't meant it when he'd said there was no him and Leia, and Luke wasn't quite sure how to take that particular piece of news. He didn't know whether to be happy for his friends or disappointed for himself. More than anything, he was shocked and discouraged by the fact that he really hadn't known. That whatever it was had been going on for awhile, and that he'd been too wrapped up in his own problems to notice.

"Anyway." Han cleared his throat. "If and when we manage to rendezvous with Chewie, we're gonna need a destination. Hey," he interrupted his own train of thought as if something important had just occurred to him. "Where'd you run off to after Bespin, anyway?"

Luke lowered his eyes. There was no reason not to answer the question, but he couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, Han knew. That the more he talked, the more he gave away, and that any minute now, Han was going to make the connection between him and Vader, and…. "Hoth." His voice was too loud, too deliberately designed to drown out that terrible train of thought. "I went to Hoth."

"Hoth?" Han had been caught off guard, but Luke could tell that at least he had believed him. "What were you doing back there?"

"I…I thought I could find something in the old Alliance records." That wasn't exactly true, but it was better than_ I have no idea_.

"And?"

Luke shook his head. "There aren't any records of the Jedi, Han. Other than Ben..." _And Yoda_. But he couldn't go back to Dagobah, not like this. Not after he had failed.

"What about Vader? He's…like you, isn't he? Like Kenobi?"

_Like me._ "Yeah."

"Well, can't you…I don't know, sense him or something?"

"It's not like that!" Luke could feel his own frustration mounting, echoing what he saw written all over Han's desperate face. He took a deep breath. These lies and half-truths weren't helping anyone. "I can…see him. He talks to me, shows me things. I don't know how much of it's true."

Han furrowed his brow. "He _talks_ to you?"

"I can see where he is. There's a mountain, and rock, and…and moons. Two of them. Just images, though. No names, no coordinates. He's waiting for me…."

"Those are dreams, kid. Nightmares." Han shook his head, and Luke knew that he wanted badly to believe what he was saying.

"We're connected, Han. Vader and me. He could have killed me on Bespin, but he didn't. He…." Luke swallowed hard, but he couldn't choke down his fear. "He asked me to join him."

"What do you mean, join him?" Han gave him a hard look.

"I mean..." began Luke, but this wasn't the place to start his confession. "After we evacuated Hoth, I went to see…a friend of Ben's. A Jedi. He was supposed to finish my training, but…." And he found himself telling Han about the training, about the visions that had driven him to Bespin in the first place, and about what had been waiting for him when he got there. It was the first time he had consciously tried to recall the details of the duel, and as he described his fall into the carbon freezing chamber he saw and felt Han shiver in reluctant sympathy, and knew that his memory, at least, wasn't faulty. He told him what Vader had done to him in the control room, ripping equipment from the walls and hurling it at him with the Force, while it had taken all the strength he'd had just to remain standing. And he told of his defeat, in as much detail as he could bear to remember, omitting only Vader's greatest blow – not because he wanted to lie to Han, he told himself, but only because he couldn't bear to hear his own voice put those particular words together.

"He took my hand." That was weird enough to say, as blunt and as matter-of-fact as if he was talking about the weather. "And then he asked me to join him. Said we could end the war. Bring order to the galaxy."

Han's face grew dark. "You didn't believe him, did you?"

"Of course not."

"But it's why he wants you back."

"Maybe." He traced the edge of the blanket with his finger, tried to follow a single thread in its purposeful zigzag pattern. But it was too small, too fine, too closely woven to too many other threads that all looked the same, and after awhile he'd forgotten which one he had set out to follow.

"All right, so he wants you because you're a Jedi. Either that, or he just wants to kill you himself. Either way –"

"No."

"No what?"

"If he'd wanted to kill me he would have. I was never a threat to him. I…. He had me out over…the core, I guess, where they mine the gas. I was…helpless. And he let me go. I jumped. I fell, and I thought it was just luck, that the wind pulled me into that vent." He was rambling, he knew, and he didn't know how much of this Han was following, but this was something he hadn't thought about before, and he had to follow the idea through to its end. "Maybe I even thought that I did it. That I saved myself, somehow, without really meaning to. But now…I think it might have been him."

"You think _Vader_ saved your life."

"He doesn't want to hurt me. Not yet."

"Fine." Han, apparently, had not been moved. His tone was as cold and as angry as it had ever been. "So we hurt him first."

"I need a weapon."

"Yeah, well I don't think he wants you to have one."

Luke nodded. "Then it's a good thing we're not very good at playing by the rules."

He didn't know if he'd meant it as a joke or not, and the half-smile, half-grimace on Han's face indicated that he was similarly confused. "Yeah, well…you got any ideas?"

Luke sighed. "No. I wish…I just wish Ben had told me more."

He didn't look at Han; he didn't have to. The flare of anger and frustration that he felt at the mention of Ben Kenobi, that had been building and burning since the first time he'd mentioned the Jedi, was hot and palpable even from the other side of the room. "Yeah, well he didn't." That was somehow Ben's fault, as well as Vader's…and Luke's, because he was a Jedi too.

_It doesn't even matter that I'm his son. I'm a monster anyway…just for being what I am._

He didn't say any of that, but it must have shown in his face because he could _feel_ Han taking a deep breath, trying to force back some of his fear. Trying to remember that Luke was his friend, and that they needed each other right now, even if they never would again.

"Sorry, kid." The apology was genuine, but there was something else that Han was fighting with. Luke saw a flash of blue sky, trees, a wisp of filmy white threatening to blow away on a breeze…and he knew that Han dreaded whatever it was, almost as much as he dreaded Vader. "I guess," he began, and he was desperately trying to sound casual. "I guess I could take you back to the base."

"There's nothing in the Alliance records. I – "

"Not the Alliance records." Han looked up, his eyes shining with the kind of self-confidence that he'd worn like a second skin back in the day. It had been a long time since Luke had seen anything close to that look in his friend's eyes, and he realized how much he had missed it. "Nah, they're holed up in this old Imperial facility. Equipment, computer systems, all dates back to the Clone Wars, and a lot of it still works. It's a long shot, but…."

Luke hardly heard the rest of what Han had to say. He'd never been much of a history student, but he knew the Clone Wars. At least, he knew what Ben had told him. His father – Anakin Skywalker – had been a pilot. He'd fought in the war, and Ben had fought with him. Vader and the Emperor had killed the Jedi, but that had to have been after the war, right? If there were really records from that era, if they'd actually survived…. "There might be something there."

"Hey, I bet some of those old-timers even remember it. Kenobi can't have been the only religious nutjob in the galaxy."

Luke tried to return his smile, but thinking about Ben made him think of something else – _Give me the controls_ – and the thought of that something else made his face fall as low as his spirits. "Han?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I ever tell you what Ben did to those Imperial troops in Mos Eisley? How they just – "

"Sure, kid," Han interrupted. "Only about a thousand times. Why?"

"I think…" The fingers on his missing hand cramped and burned. "I think I just did the same thing to you."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

One day, one hour, one planet at a time. That was how Leia had vowed to set about her task, and she was mildly annoyed at the fact that it didn't seem to be working.

She got up early, went to bed late, and when she ate at all it was here, in the control room, in front of the same old computer terminal. Between what the Alliance had managed to salvage of its own records and what they had found in the databanks of the antiquated base, she had plenty of information on the systems on which she had decided to focus – all of the hundreds of systems on the Cor Mannar trade route. The only problem was that, after days of searching, most of her initial ideas had led to dead ends. Leia had found very little to pique her interest, and certainly nothing that would explain why the Empire had forfeited such a strategically placed facility without anything that she could rationally describe as a fight.

It didn't help that, everywhere she turned, the ghosts of her past seemed to be following her, looking for her, popping up in places where they shouldn't have been and making an already confusing situation nothing less than agonizing. Leia tried to tune them out. If the Empire cared about Telmanar, it was because of its mines and metalworks, and certainly not the fact that it had been the first world to which she'd accompanied her father on a mission of diplomacy. Vader and his generals wouldn't care that Leia had spent a number of childhood vacations on the spacious beaches of Ullana, although it was interesting from a military standpoint as a sentinel between Coruscant and the Inner Rim. It was too visible, though, and too well defended. The Empire knew that they'd have to do more than lose one fight to lure the Alliance into attacking there. Coruscant itself was even more out of the question for the same reasons, but Leia looked through the extensive file anyway, trying to consider its position in the middle of this mess as the center of Imperial military, economic, and cultural might – never mind that it was also home to hundreds of Leia's acquaintances, and a handful of people she might even call friends.

Leia sighed and closed the file. Another day, another hour. Another dead end. She raised a hand to her forehead, smoothing out the imagined lines on her constantly furrowed brow. Her eyes were dry, and she was thirsty. She hadn't had anything to drink since breakfast, and how many planets ago had that been?

"Threepio?" She looked around for the droid, but he was nowhere to be found. "Excuse me," she called out to a young pilot, who looked around nervously, as though he was sure that she must be talking to someone else, before he answered.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"Have you seen See-Threepio?"

A smile spread over the pilot's face, and all of a sudden he was eager to be of service. "I think he's down in the hangar with Mr. Calrissian. Sensors picked up a couple of ships outside the system. Calrissian and a couple of others went down to check it out."

"Ships?"

"They didn't seem too worried." The pilot's tone was meant to be reassuring, but experience had taught Leia nothing if it had not taught her that ships in the skies above a supposedly secret base very rarely brought anything but more destruction and despair.

"Thank you." Princess Leia Organa smiled back, but it was Leia the warrior who stood and, as quickly and efficiently as she could without sacrificing dignity, marched off in the direction of the hangar.

The corridors, it seemed, were full of pilots and their commanding officers. Leia recognized most of them; she probably could have called half of them by name. A wiry, dark-haired man fell in step beside her, and it took her a moment to realize that it was Wedge Antilles. Up ahead, she thought she saw a cloud of white hair and flowing robes that could only belong to Jan Dodonna. No alarms had been sounded, no voices had been raised, and yet it seemed like the entire base was intent on turning out to greet their visitors or – remembering the hard lessons they'd learnt on Hoth – getting off the planet as quickly as they possibly could.

Wedge turned to her and asked, "Do you know what's going on?" Leia could only shake her head; she was probably more out of the loop than Wedge or any of his pilots would be.

The man immediately in front of them stopped and cocked his head as a whisper ran over them, around them, through the crowd. "X-Wing."

"An X-Wing?"

"It's an X-Wing."

"One of ours?"

"An X-Wing?" Wedge's voice was hard, disbelieving. "That's impossible. All of our ships are accounted for, and anyone who went missing after Hoth has been gone too long –"

Leia broke into a run. She would apologize to Wedge later; for now, the only thing she could think about was that X-Wing, and the only pilot she could think of who could possibly be aboard. The thought that Wedge was right – that any of the pilots who had gone missing after Hoth wouldn't know how to find them here even if they wanted to – did cross her mind, and she knew that Luke fell into that category as well. Had he used the Alliance com frequency to contact the base? If he had, why hadn't anyone told her? Or did he know the Alliance was here, just because he _knew_? She wouldn't let herself think that there were hundreds of thousands of X-Wing fighters in the galaxy, and that the pilot might not even be with the Alliance at all. It had to be Luke. It just had to be.

Lando, Threepio, and a handful of others were gathered at the far end of the hangar bay. They were all people she knew, all people who – with the notable exception of Lando himself – had been with the Alliance since Yavin. All people who knew Luke. All people who would welcome him back, welcome him home. The others – the ones who had heard the whispered rumors in the hallways, the ones who knew enough to be excited or at least curious about the arrival of an unannounced, unescorted X-Wing but who weren't close enough to call themselves friends – hung back, pretending to devote themselves to a variety of menial tasks while keeping their quiet, questioning eyes on the open hatch in the ceiling. They were hoping to fill at least some of the gaps in the story they'd heard of the legendary Commander Skywalker who had disappeared, only to show up weeks later having suffered mysterious injuries that, depending on who you talked to, ranged anywhere from a superficial flesh wound that he had used as a poor excuse for desertion to a serious maiming that had cost him his career and nearly his life. If it weren't for the word of the highest echelon of the Alliance, Leia wondered if many of them wouldn't have assumed him dead already.

The ship was coming in. Threepio's golden eyes found Leia's across the room. He waved to her, and Lando shouted something in greeting, but the hum of the fighter's repulsorlifts was the only thing she was especially interested to hear.

The S-Foils were closed, the landing lights on. Leia's eyes never left the ship as it lowered itself into its berth. It sounded all right. It didn't look damaged. Leia was no mechanic, but she took what comfort she could in those small things as she crossed the room to join her friends in their impromptu welcome party.

Lando gave her a nervous look. Dodonna, on her immediate left, put a hand on her shoulder and smiled down at her with what seemed like a strange mixture of relief and bitterness. Leia wished she could read his mind, or at least that the rest of the crowd would disappear for a moment so she could ask him what was wrong. Hadn't he been eager to have Luke back in Rogue Squadron? She felt her own smile falter, and she squinted up at the ship again, wondering if her instinct could possibly be wrong. That was Artoo, wasn't it? Had Luke's X-Wing had that scoring on the port side, or –

Then the canopy swung open. Leia's face fell, and the unexpected hope deserted her as quickly as it had found her. It wasn't Luke. That shattering disappointment hit her first, clear and hard and brutal, but it was soon washed away as she realized that the pilot of the X-Wing was a friend – a friend she hadn't expected to see again anytime soon.

"Chewie?" And she was calculating again, trying to come up with a scenario in which Han and Chewie's sudden departure had somehow led to the return of Chewie, alone, in an X-Wing that looked like Luke's and with an R2 unit that looked like….

"Artoo-Detoo!" Threepio confirmed what she had suspected. "Where have you been? Well, it certainly doesn't look as though you've taken proper care of yourself. What have I told you about going so long without an oil bath? Well, of _course_ I know what I'm talking about!"

Leia felt a twinge of sympathy for Artoo. Not even out of his socket yet, and he was already being given the third degree. Then again – she gave Chewie a wary glance – she was almost inclined to sympathize with Threepio on this one.

"Chewie, where's Han? Slow down," she pleaded, suddenly wishing she'd put a little more effort into learning the Wookiee language. "I don't understand. Where's the _Falcon_? Where's Luke? How did you get this ship?"

"It's all right, Leia." It was Lando who answered, grinning ear to ear with an obvious joy that seemed completely out of place alongside her confusion and concern. "I would have told you, but I didn't know the details myself until they called me down here." He glanced around the room at the assembled pilots; most of them had given up pretending to work on their ships and had blatantly directed their attention to Chewbacca. "Should have known that a good bit of gossip can outrun even the _Falcon_."

"You mean – ?"

Lando nodded. "She should be landing any minute now."

"And Luke?"

Chewie roared triumphantly.

Politics and tactics and the research that for the past few days had occupied Leia's every waking hour were forgotten. The nervous fear that had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach on the day Han had left was gone, replaced by an uncomfortable self-consciousness. The eyes of the Alliance were on the ship that even now had begun to cast its distinctive shadow on the hangar. They were on Lando and Threepio and Dodonna. On Wedge, just now taking a late place at the back of the crowd. On Leia, who was beginning to wish that she hadn't come.

She was glad that Han was alive, of course, just as she was glad for Luke and for Chewie – but she wasn't sure if she was glad to have him back here, so soon after he had said those terrible things to her and then left her more alone than she had been since her imprisonment on the Death Star. She didn't know what she would say to him. She didn't know how to act, and she was seized by a fear that she had never felt this acutely before – the fear that she wouldn't be able to disguise her emotions, and that the love and the hate and the confused passion that she felt toward him would be on display for everyone to see.

Beside her, Lando continued to smile. He seemed genuinely glad that Han was back, and apparently unconcerned about the fact that his old friend had treated him with nothing but contempt since Bespin. Maybe Lando thought he deserved it. Or maybe he was just confident enough that he was sure he could win Han over with time and good behavior. Leia had neither guilt nor confidence to soothe her nerves, and as she watched the familiar ship go through its familiar landing cycle, she found herself rehearsing a hundred different lines – some warm, some frigid, but none of them right.

She caught his eye only for a moment as he descended the boarding ramp, and had to look away in a hurry. Her face was burning; she was sure she was bright red, and whether it was with humiliation or excitement she didn't really want to consider. Han, for his part, gave her a nervous little half-smile that made her stomach turn. She knew him too well, and what he was trying to pass off as confidence was obvious discomfort.

"General." He nodded to Dodonna. "Commander. Your Highness. You'll be happy to hear that I tracked down Commander Skywalker." He called back to the ship, with a forced brightness, "Come on, Luke! Looks like they've sent us quite a welcoming party."

A whisper swept through the crowd as Luke appeared in the doorway. He walked with his shoulders hunched and his head down, and Leia thought he looked even thinner and weaker than she remembered. The crowd seemed to shift, as though every person standing here had simultaneously decided to take a step forward and then, seeing that no one else had done so first, retreated back into their original positions. She knew how they felt. If it had been anyone other than Luke, she would have been feeling the same way. They didn't know whether to welcome him as a hero, to spurn him as a traitor, or to mourn the reduction of one of their greatest pilots to this pale, emaciated cripple who would have looked the part of a bitter old veteran if only his hair were white and his face lined with wrinkles instead of scars.

She decided to answer the question for them.

"Luke." She wrapped her arms around him, and he stiffened in her embrace.

"Leia."

The eyes of the crowd were on them and, too late, Leia realized that some of the rumors about Luke had probably involved her as well. She almost laughed at the thought, and then almost laughed at the fact that she didn't really mind people thinking unkind things about her, as long as she knew that they weren't true. She held Luke even tighter, purely and genuinely glad to have him back in one piece, and if the embrace he finally offered in return was a little stiff, and more than a little awkward, she loved him all the more for it because it meant that at least some of her farmboy had survived.

"Luke." It was Dodonna who stepped forward next, hesitating only for a moment before gracefully offering his left hand to shake. "It's good to have you back."

Luke was wide-eyed and nervous, and Leia gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. She couldn't imagine what it must have taken for him to come back here, and she didn't envy him the task of having to explain to his commanding officers everything that had happened to him since Hoth – although she was more than a little curious as to what, exactly, that explanation would be.

"He'll be all right." Leia jumped at the sound of Han's voice. "Kid's tougher than he looks."

"Thank you. Han…."

"Don't worry about me, Princess." He turned and started to push his way through the crowd before calling over his shoulder, as if it were an afterthought, "We won't be around long enough to get in your way."

* * *

The control room was dark, the com systems silent. Leia didn't know what time it was, but she knew it was late. _Just one more system,_ she told herself. _Then I really should get some sleep_.

The night controller looked up, giving Leia a sympathetic grin as her fingers on the keyboard broke the silence, bringing the next planet up on the screen. _Uninhabited. Minimal life forms, none of them sentient. No imports, no exports._ "No value – to us or to them."

"You should get some rest."

Leia jumped. She hadn't seen Luke since he'd disappeared into a conference room with Mothma and Dodonna, hours ago. How long had he been standing there, watching her?

"You're exhausted."

It was true, even if she didn't like being told as much. Even if the dark circles under Luke's eyes said that he'd been without sleep – or at least without rest – for much longer than she had.

"So are you."

He sat down beside her. "What are you working on?"

"Just some…analysis."

"What planet is this?"

Leia had to check the screen. "Vanir." She shook her head. "It's not important. Where have you been, Luke? We've been so worried."

"I talked to the general."

"Are you going to rejoin the squadron?"

"No." Luke's voice was soft and distant. "I didn't talk to him about that. I had to ask him about…the Jedi." He looked up, and his eyes, which had been dark and glassy, suddenly grew sharp.

"The Jedi?"

"He fought with Ben, in the Clone Wars. If there were Jedi back then – other Jedi – I thought that he might…know what happened to them."

"But he didn't."

"No. Did your father ever tell you about the Jedi, Leia?"

_The Jedi_. Leia shook her head. "Not really. He used that word, to talk about General…about Ben. I didn't know what it meant. I still don't really understand."

"What about Vader?" Luke leaned closer to her, and his kind, wonderful face was set in angry stone.

"I – I've heard the stories. About what he can do. About Vader and Kenobi. About how they were…"

"…the same."

"No! No, of course not." Leia pulled away. "Ben was nothing like Vader. I didn't mean…."

"It's all right." Luke's features softened; now he just looked tired, and sad. "Vader was…he was a Jedi, too."

"Don't talk like that. Look what he did to you! What he did to Han! How can you say that –" And then she saw something, felt something that made her draw in a sharp breath and hold it. Was that why Luke had come back here?

The control room was still dark, still mostly empty. The night controller was focused on her blank terminal, the security guards staring off into the darkness. They were all friends here, all as much against Vader and the Empire as she was – and it was because of that that she could not say what she had to say here.

"Walk with me."

Leia stood and walked toward the hallway, toward the lift.

"Leia, what's wrong?"

She didn't answer. Didn't answer, even when the doors swung shut behind them. Didn't answer, even when they opened again on the overgrown rooftop and the cool black sky. She walked to the railing and leaned out into the night, as she had when Han had left her, as she had every lonely night since she had been here. It had helped her to collect her thoughts, once. It didn't really seem to be helping her anymore.

Luke waited. Leia thought that he would probably wait until sunrise, if that was what it took. She wondered if she could wait forever, if her silence could keep him here…and then decided that nothing could do that. In a very real way, the Luke that she knew was already gone.

"Don't do it," she said, knowing that he wouldn't listen.

"I have to."

"Why?" She whirled around to look him in the eye. He looked more miserable than she had ever seen him.

"Because…because I'm the same, too."

"You're nothing like Vader! You – you're not a Jedi, Luke! You don't have to be. Stay here, with us. You're a pilot. A good one! You can do good here, with the rest of the Alliance. Why do you have to face him alone?"

"I won't be alone." His voice was quiet, apologetic. As the full implication of what he was saying sunk in, Leia felt a lump of ice grow start to grow where her heart had been.

"No."

"Han wants to go with me. It's his choice. If he wants to back out now, I won't stop him."

"But if Vader…."

"I'll teach him what I can. It might not be enough, but…I need his help. And I need your help, too."

"I can't do anything." She shook her head. "What am I supposed to do? What are any of us supposed to do? If you couldn't defeat him before –" She stopped, aware of the uncomfortable implications of what she had been about to say, but if Luke had noticed, he didn't say anything.

He stood beside her, looking up at the stars. She half expected him to put his arm around her, to hold her like he had back on the hospital ship, and was a little relieved when he didn't.

"He's there."

"Where?"

"There." Luke pointed at the sky, and Leia tried to follow his gaze. The stars all looked the same to her; she couldn't even tell which he was looking at, but she shivered all the same.

"How do you know?"

"You showed me."

"What do you mean? Luke, you're...you're scaring me. Please, just tell me what's going on."

"I have to go to him. There. On Vanir."

"Vanir? Luke, that was a dead end. There's nothing on Vanir."

"No." He shook his head. "That's where he is. He's there, at the top of the black mountain…." His voice trailed off. He held out his right arm, examined it, and then examined the air around it as though he could see the hand that was no longer there. "I have to go to him."

"Why?"

"He's…" Luke hesitated. "He's the only one who can tell me who I am."

"He'll kill you."

"No. I don't think he will."

"Then you're crazy! You – you can't even defend yourself. What are you going to do if he…?" She couldn't finish the thought.

"I need a weapon. And I need a ship. We can't take the _Falcon_."

"Why not?"

"Don't ask me that. It's just…" He shivered, and a pained look tugged at his features, lining his face far beyond what his twenty-three years should have done. "A feeling. There's something wrong with the ship."

"Then stay with us. Han can fix it, and we'll look for another lightsaber. Luke, why do you have to do this now?"

"I can't stay here. Vader can see me too. He'll find me no matter where I go, and if I stay here, he'll find you too. This is the only way I can help the Alliance now."

"And Han?"

"He loves you, Leia. He does. And so do I." He did wrap his arms around her now, and kissed her gently on the crown of her head. Salty tears stung her face, and she wasn't sure if they were his or hers, or a mixture of the two. "I'll bring him back to you, Princess. I promise."

Leia nodded and held him tighter, but it did nothing to soothe her fears. She was losing them. She was losing them both. And there was nothing that she, or Luke, or anyone else could do to stop it.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Luke saw it out of the corner of his eye as the _Millennium Falcon_ plummeted toward the planet below: a blur, a blind spot, a blot on the edge of his vision. He looked away, but when he turned back it had grown, blossoming and spreading before his eyes. It was creeping in through the edges of the viewscreen, into the body of the ship itself. Chasing him. Closing in on him. Making it hard to see or think or breathe.

_We're not going fast enough. Han!_

But he was dreaming, and the Han-shape next to him didn't hear his plea and didn't seem to see the dark cloud that hovered over the planet, the ship, and both of its passengers.

_Luke._

_Father?_ He called out, but the blackness muffled his words.

_Son. You must come to me. There is no time._

_No time for what?_

_He is coming._

_Who?_

_The Emperor. Soon, it will be too late._

The control panel cracked and sparked – red, he knew, the red of explosion and fire, but his vision was fading, and the red became a distant, smoky orange. _Han!_ He cried out, or tried to, but he was trapped in the cloud, trapped in the dream….

_The ship! It's burning! Han!_

And then: _Father!_

He reached out for Vader's presence, letting it fill him. His need was as sharp and as painful as Luke's own.

_Father._

And then the answer: _Son._

They plunged into the atmosphere. Winds battered the ship; up became down, and then there was no up at all. Luke reached for the controls, but he was grasping at air. _Han, do something!_ But even the shadow of Han was gone. The pilot's seat was empty, and he was only pounding at the dead controls with an impotent stump that was starting to redden and throb.

And then he was falling. Falling down into the clouds – or into the darkness that only looked like clouds. Han was gone. Vader was gone. He was alone. Falling.

Wet. Water crept into the ship, soaking his clothes and plastering them to his skin. _Where am I?_ He reached out blindly, finding only more water and fog and cold.

_Luke._

He knew that voice.

_Ben?_

The water was shallow. He stood up and began to walk in a direction that he hoped would take him to shore.

"Luke? Luke!"

Someone was shaking him. Hard. Luke tried to say something, to protest, to beg whoever it was to let him follow the dream to its end – but his mouth didn't seem to realize that it had been woken up quite yet, and the best that he could manage was a disgruntled "Mmmph."

"Come on, kid!" It was Han. "Snap out of it!"

"I'm out of it, I'm out of it. Come on, that hurts!" Luke fell back onto the bed, rubbing at the shoulder that Han had seemed pretty intent on wrenching right out of the socket. "It was just a dream."

"Dream?" Han scowled. "More like another nightmare."

_Not quite_, Luke thought, but he didn't bother to correct his friend. He could still see the dream-darkness, clouding his peripheral vision. _He is coming. _Luke shivered. Maybe Vader was right. They didn't have much time.

* * *

They spent the morning moving their things from the _Falcon_ to the battered, nondescript shuttle that Leia had provided. Luke felt a little guilty that Han and especially Chewie were doing the bulk of the work, but not quite guilty enough to break his own rule and use the Force – at least, in any obvious way – in front of his friends in the Alliance. It seemed like every pilot in the place had turned out to watch them, not to mention a handful of people who ordinarily wouldn't have had any business in the hangar at all. It made Luke uncomfortable, and so he spent most of his time inside the shuttle, going through the supplies that Han and Chewie delivered, sorting through the things they needed and the things that would only be weighing them down, and trying, with the half of his mind that wasn't really needed for that task, to figure out what Ben, or Vader, or whoever, had been trying to tell him in his dreams.

Every once in awhile Han would shoot him a mildly dirty look over the top of a container, sometimes asking him if he couldn't just teleport the stuff over here, and Luke would give him a patient smile and a non-answer. Han was dealing with the situation as well as he could, but Luke knew that he didn't like the idea of leaving the _Falcon_ behind, any more than he liked the idea that their reason for doing so was nothing more than a dream, a vision…and that he, Han Solo, eternal skeptic, was faced with no choice but to believe it.

Most of the spare parts that Chewie had lugged over were either specific to the _Falcon_ or, as far as Luke could tell, not very useful for anything. He left that container mostly full, pulling only a few tools that were universal enough that they might be of some use if there were any problems with the shuttle. There were piles of clothes – too many, maybe, but his visions of Vanir had never been too specific about the weather – and boxes and boxes of rations bars and bottled water.

Then there were the weapons. Between Han and the Alliance, Luke figured they had just about every kind of blaster in the galaxy strewn across the floor of the shuttle's minimal cargo hold. They wouldn't do much good against Vader, but going into an Imperial facility – of any kind – unarmed would be almost as suicidal as going up against the Dark Lord without a lightsaber. Luke scanned the pile, selected a likely candidate, and with a glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being watched, called it into his hand with the Force.

He tested the weight of it, the feel of it in his hand. Pretty close to the weapon he already had. It would do all right as a backup. The power cell was low; Luke tossed it onto the pile of junk to send back with Chewie and installed a new one – using the Force again, this time to do the job of the hand he had lost.

Another blaster flew across the room, effortlessly despite its size, but when he held it Luke immediately put it aside. _Too heavy to take up that mountain_. He closed his eyes, trying to see the lay of the land as it had been in his visions, but the darkness was still there. Closer. And beyond it…_the_ Falcon. _Burning. Ben. Dagobah._

It had been Dagobah in his dream. He'd known that, even as he was dreaming it, but he didn't really want to think about what that might mean. _Ben…I can't go back there. I…._

"Hey, watch where you're…flying…that thing!"

The next weapon clattered to the floor as Han stepped into the room, breaking Luke's concentration and giving the blaster – or was it some kind of modified crossbow? – a wary look.

"Sorry, I…"

Han saw the look on Luke's face and his own expression softened. "Hey, don't worry about it. You…you do what you gotta do." He picked his way across the hold, nudging weapons and equipment out of the way when there wasn't enough room to step around them. "Need any help?"

"No, thanks. I don't think most of these are going to do us a lot of good."

"Yeah." Han pushed a pile of power cells aside and took a seat on the floor next to Luke. "I, uh…I talked to Chewie."

"Is he all right with staying behind?"

"No. But he knows I don't trust Lando, and somebody's gotta look after…the_ Falcon_."

"The _Falcon_?"

"Yeah." Han's tone was defensive. "That ship means a lot to me, and…"

"Okay."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Han." The smile that he'd been unable to repress a moment before faded, and Luke's face fell as looked his friend in the eye. "Say goodbye."

"What, to the _Falcon_?"

"To Leia."

"Yeah, sure." The response was too quick, too casual.

"I mean it. She cares about you. She…"

"Don't say it, kid."

"I can feel it."

"Yeah, well I sure as hell can't."

"Do you…" Luke reached out gingerly, touching the edges of Han's anger and frustration…and fear. "Do you want to try?"

Han raised an eyebrow. "Try what?"

"The Force, Han. It's not all nightmares. And besides, if we're going up against Vader…."

"I dunno, kid. Sounds like a bad idea."

"There." Luke closed his eyes and tightened his focus. The darkness was still there, still waiting for him, just out of sight, staining the edges of the world with a warping, twisting fog…but for now, at least, he could ignore it. The light here was bright enough, fueled by the living passion of every person, every being in the Alliance. And there – whether she realized it or not – at the center of it all, was Leia. Burning with frustration, with concern, with anger and with fatigue…but under it all, she was ultimately fueled by love.

Luke wrapped his hand around Han's wrist, gripping it hard, as if that would somehow help him to channel some of that warmth into his friend. "Look." He could feel the resistance; Han believed in the Force because he'd seen things that had left him with no choice, but that didn't mean that he accepted what he saw. "Close your eyes. Reach out. Here." He breathed in the light. It cleansed, it healed. It flowed through him, and into Han. _Let it heal you, too._

Han jerked his hand away.

"What?" Luke opened his eyes. "What happened?"

"Not a damn thing." Han looked away, rubbing furiously at his wrist as though Luke's touch had stung him. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for, but all I see is a lot of nothing."

Luke couldn't keep the disappointment from his voice. How could he not see how Leia felt, how they all felt about him? "You're not even trying."

"I'm trying, kid, I'm just not succeeding." Han shrugged. "Look, I told you this was a bad idea. I'm no Jedi Knight. You figure out a way to keep Vader out of my head, you let me know. Until then…"

Luke gave him a tired smile. "I'm working on it. I thought this might be…you know, a first step."

Han rolled his eyes. "Why is that not very reassuring?"

"There's nothing dangerous here. You have my word."

"Your word as a Jedi, huh?"

"Something like that." Luke felt his smile fade. The word of a Jedi. It was something to think about.

Something to think about… along with the fact that, even in this old place, there seemed to be no mention anywhere of the Jedi and their weapons. That even people who had known Ben as a pilot and a general had no memory of him ever being anything more. That, without meaning to, he had done to Han what Ben had done to those stormtroopers, made him hand over the _Falcon_'s controls when he never would have done so on his own. It scared him and, although the hardened ex-smuggler never said as much, he knew that it scared Han, too.

Luke didn't even know if he _could_ teach Han to use the Force, or even to guard against it if Vader tried to use it on him. He wasn't even sure if he could do that trick again himself, at least not intentionally. _A powerful influence on the weak-minded_. That's what Ben had called it. So why had it worked on Han, who was as hard-headed as they came, especially when it came to the _Falcon_? Maybe it wasn't something you could learn in a day. Maybe Luke just didn't know how to teach it. Maybe it was just genetic, and if Han didn't have whatever it was that Luke had inherited from..._from Vader_…maybe he would never be able to do it.

_There's just too much I don't know. Too much I don't understand._ Luke needed his father, but he didn't trust him, and when it came to Vader, he wasn't sure if he really trusted himself. He needed Han, and not just because his dreams repeatedly told him so. He needed Han because he was stubborn and loyal and unforgiving, at least when it came to the man who had tortured and maimed his friends. He didn't know if he intended to kill Vader or not. But he needed Han…_to kill me. If I fail, if I fall…I need Han to kill me._

"You sure you're all right?"

"What?" Luke looked up, right into Han's eyes. _He'll do it, too, if he has to_. The thought was strangely reassuring.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost, kid."

"Han…Vader doesn't want me dead. He wants me...like him. And if he succeeds, I'm a bigger threat to the Alliance than…" _than the whole Empire put together. _ "I want you to promise that if –"

"It's not gonna come to that."

"But if it does…?"

"Yeah." Han stood, turned away. Bitterness rolled off him in soft, resigned waves. "I'll do what I have to do. But if you make me do that, kid…I swear to all that's good in this universe that I will never forgive you."

And he wouldn't. Luke knew that. Han had killed before, too many times to count, and not always in self-defense. But Luke didn't need the Force to tell him that the thought of taking the life of a friend – of someone he had sworn, if not in so many words, to protect – took more from Han than any carbon freeze, any torture ever could. _He would sacrifice_ himself _for me. No, not even for me…for a dead ideal. For a galaxy neither of us will live to see. What's forgiveness, next to that?_

And then: _What's pride?_

Luke picked up another blaster; it was a piece of junk, streaked with carbon scoring and with at least a couple of loose parts rattling around inside. Damaged and beyond its prime – but if it came down to it, it would kill just as well as the others. _It doesn't matter what it looks like. Doesn't matter where it's been. Maybe it doesn't even matter who made it, and why. It'll kill. The only question is whether it kills for the right reasons, or the wrong ones._

Night after night, he had called out to Ben, hoped beyond hope that his answer would come, when there had been nothing but silence for so long. He had traveled halfway across the galaxy and back in search of weapons that may never have existed, and Jedi whose names he didn't even know. All because Luke had been too proud to return in defeat to the one person besides Vader who did have the answers to all of his questions, who knew exactly what a lightsaber was and where in the galaxy one might be found…_who can help me, and who might be able to help Han, too._

He placed the battered old blaster on top of the pile of rejects, and followed Han back to the _Falcon_. He had given his word once before – as a Jedi, or at least as a student of one. Maybe it was time that he kept it. There was nothing to be gained by staying here. It was time to clear out the junk, say goodbye to his friends, and to tell Han that they were going to the Dagobah system.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

"Leave us."

The Emperor spoke, and his minions obeyed. The red-robed guards who stood at either side of the throne watched silently as the four stormtroopers, the last of Darth Vader's entourage, turned swiftly on their heels and marched out in brisk, military synchrony. The guards did not follow, but fell back, melting into the darkness with the fluidity of blood and leaving the two black-shrouded figures alone.

"My presence here surprises you." The Emperor scowled. "You have grown careless."

Vader lowered himself to one knee, bending his back and bowing his head in an expression of utter humility. "I am in need of your guidance, Master."

His master sneered. "You attempt to flatter me, Lord Vader, and you fail. Where is Skywalker? My patience is not without its bounds."

"He will be here."

"So you say. He has grown quite powerful."

"He has begun to embrace the Dark Side. It is only a matter of time."

The Emperor looked up, out the window, and a puzzled expression spread over his ancient features. "I cannot sense him."

"He maintains his connection to me. It is his choice as well as his destiny."

"Then he has accepted the truth?"

"He has."

"And I must be content to take you at your word?"

"For now. He is not alone."

"Ah, yes…his friend. He is of no concern to me. And yet…" Yellow eyes widened. "I sense that he is of great concern to _you_. Perhaps I have underestimated you, my friend. Rise."

Vader did. "He is his father's son."

"Yes." The Emperor smiled. "If power is not enough to tempt him…."

"There are other means."

"I trust that you know how to use them."

The steady rasp of the Dark Lord's breathing filled the room, interrupted only by the creak of leather against leather as he clenched his black-gloved hands. "I do," he replied at last, and strode to the window. The moons were burning brightly; it was only a matter of days, now, until they would be full.

Ancient laughter followed him. "Then I leave the matter in your hands." The Emperor stood. "I trust that your memory of your own training will be an appropriate guide."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

The faces gathered around the shuttle were grim. Blue and white landing lights warred with the washed-out yellow overheads for the right to cast grayish shadows on skin and fur and metal plating, with the combined effect of painting them all even deeper into a shared expression that fell somewhere between resignation and melancholy.

Han heard Luke's footsteps on the ramp, and Threepio looked up at his master with a quiet whirr of mechanical joints. Artoo cooed softly, and Leia's skirts rustled against her legs. These sounds were underscored by the steady hum of the shuttle's engines. No one spoke, and for a moment Han thought that this might be it, that he might actually get his wish and be spared a string of sentimental goodbyes.

It was Chewie, of course, who put an end to the not-quite-silence, and because it was Chewie Han let him come, let himself be caught up in something that was half hug and half tackle. He would have been hard-pressed to come up with a decent translation for the Wookiee's goodbye. It was something like "Be careful," with a strong undercurrent of "You had better come back," but there was more to it than concern. Chewie hated being left behind, almost as much as Han hated to leave him. He would stay, because he owed Han that much and because he knew that Leia and the others needed him, but he wouldn't like it, and he wouldn't let Han forget that fact.

"It's not your fight, buddy," Han murmured in a voice that he hoped was too low for the others to hear. "Shhh!" he hissed, but there was nothing he could do to quiet an agitated Wookiee. "It's all right. We'll be all right, Chewie."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luke say something to General Rieekan, and whatever the general said to him in reply, it managed to elicit something that was almost a smile.

"Captain Solo?" The general turned to Han, and Han pulled free of the furry embrace in order to shake the man's hand. Rieekan was a good man, and if any of the higher-ups in the Alliance had to be here tonight, Han was at least glad that he was the one who had drawn the short straw. "Take care of yourself, Solo."

Han nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that."

"Oh, and do take care of Master Luke as well!" Threepio chimed in.

Han didn't feel too bad about brushing off the droid, and he almost took pleasure in ignoring Lando's attempt at a friendly goodbye. As far as he was concerned, he was showing a hell of a lot of restraint at this point just by leaving his blaster in its holster.

And then there was Leia. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and silent. Off-black shadows hollowed her cheeks and deepened the circles under her eyes. She was so tired, so thin, so vulnerable. She reached up to touch him, and he didn't pull away. The tips of her fingers brushed his cheek, his ear, and came to rest against his scalp. Her cool palm cupped the side of his face, and she studied him for a long time, as though trying to commit his features to memory.

"Han." She said his name, and Han was sure that she would say something else. _Han, be careful_. Or _Han, come back safely._ Or _Han, don't go._

But she didn't say anything. She let him go, with his own name ringing softly in his ears. He could still feel her hand on his cheek, and he carried it with him into the shuttle and off into the night sky.

Luke took the controls. As much as Han hated to fly with anyone besides himself in the pilot's seat, there hadn't really been any question about that. _The Dagobah system._ He repeated the name to himself as he watched the base grow smaller and smaller, disappearing into the trees and then into the featureless green globe of the planet that, in turn, shrunk to a ball, a speck, and then disappeared altogether. As far as the navicomputers on the _Falcon_ and on the shuttle were concerned, the Dagobah system didn't exist. If Luke thought that it did…. Han didn't want to think too much about it. Flying through hyperspace without a computer was like…well, it was a hell of a lot like a pirate and a farmboy going up against Darth Vader. The only question, as far as Han could see it, was whether death would come sooner or later, and – as much as it hurt his pride to admit it – there was no real reason that he had to be the one at the controls when it did.

They made the jump. Han didn't bother to ask how long it would be; besides the fact that it didn't really matter, he didn't especially feel like talking. Either Luke felt the same way, or it was taking all of his concentration just to keep them on course. Every once in awhile he would make a visible adjustment to the ship, but most of what the kid was doing – whether it was flying or meditating or slowly losing what was left of his marbles – seemed to be going on in the confines of his own head, and Han, for one, was happy to see it stay that way.

He slept. He woke up, and when he saw that nothing had changed he slept again, with his head cocked uncomfortably to one side and the palm of his hand serving as a lousy substitute for a pillow. _I guess that's the nice thing about an extended vacation at Jabba's,_ he told himself with a bitter smile. _Makes even a bucket of bolts like this seem like a luxury liner._

When he woke the second time, the familiar purple-blue of hyperspace was gone, and in its place, already swelling to fill most of the viewscreen, was a brownish-green planet. "Dagobah?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah." He didn't take his eyes off the screen. The expression on his face was as deadpan as it had been since they'd taken off, but Han thought that his tone of voice sounded absolutely miserable.

"That's good, right? I mean, if this is where your Jedi friend lives…."

"He's not my friend, he's –" But Luke never got a chance to explain exactly what he was, because the ship's alarms started to wail. Han reached for the controls out of habit, but this wasn't the _Falcon_ and there was nothing he could do from here. All the scopes and the scanners were dead.

"Here we go again," Han muttered. It bothered him a little that he really couldn't think of anything else to say or to feel. Why shouldn't all the systems fail at once the moment they hit the atmosphere? It made about as much sense as this ball of mud and pond scum being home to Luke's legendary Jedi Master. It was pretty hard to be shocked, when all of his previous life experience gave him absolutely nothing in the way of expectations to go on.

So it didn't really surprise him when Luke made the landing with his eyes closed and his fingers barely touching the stick. It didn't surprise him at all that there was no one there to meet them, unless you counted a bunch of snakes and some bird-things that looked almost, but not quite, like mynocks. It sure as hell didn't surprise him to see his friend fall back into the pilot's seat with his eyes closed and his face drawn, as if whatever magic he had just worked had been some kind of intense physical exertion.

The only thing that could really shock Han Solo at this point came next, when Luke opened his eyes and, with a look that seemed inexplicably to beg for forgiveness, said, "Han?"

"Yeah?"

"There's something I have to tell you."

* * *

His decision had been made, Luke thought, for a long time. Long enough that he couldn't really remember making it, and long enough that, when he finally said what he had to say, the words were just words, stripped by time and mental repetition of any emotion or meaning.

"I should tell you now, because you're going to find out anyway, and I think you should…you should know who I am, before we do this."

Han gave him a wary look, and Luke closed his eyes. The words came, and they were just words, after all.

"Vader's my father."

He didn't know what kind of reaction he'd been expecting. Anger? Fear? Hate? He didn't get any of those. Luke opened his eyes and glanced up at Han's face, but his expression was as blank and unreadable as the dull, uncomprehending presence that he had in the Force.

"Han?"

"I don't get it."

"It's true." It occurred to him then that Han might not believe him, and that somehow seemed worse than all of the other scenarios he'd envisioned put together. "He told me."

"That's not…that's not possible, kid." But he hesitated, and his words were colored by doubt. Curiosity. And something darker.

"It's why he didn't kill me."

"No." There was the anger; Han clenched his hands into fists and Luke could tell that he was putting a great deal of effort into resisting the urge to do anything that would damage the shuttle. "It's not possible. And if that's what he told you, if that's why you're gonna go running back to him now…."

"It's part of it." Luke looked down at the surgical scar that marred the otherwise smooth stump of his right arm. He shook his head. "I should have told you sooner."

"Yeah. Yeah, you probably should've." Han stood and turned his back on Luke. He picked up the satchel that held his most basic emergency provisions and slung it over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't see any Jedi Masters on this ship."

He was down the ramp before Luke could think of anything to say in response, and by the time he'd managed to shut down the engines and gather his own things, Han had plowed halfway through the swamp in the wrong direction, up to his ankles in mud and drenched in a sweat that was more the product of humidity than of heat. "This way!" Luke called, grateful for the handful of minutes it would take Han to get back to the ship from where he was. He was tired – tired in body and tired in mind, and not especially looking forward to facing his old teacher.

They trudged through the swamp in silence. Luke had an easier time of it than Han did, using the Force and his memories to guide his steps, but he never heard his friend complain. He was angry and frustrated and confused, but Luke had no idea how much of that, if any, had to do with his revelation. More than anything else, it was a cold determination that was driving them through the mist. They'd started this, and they were going to finish it. Or maybe they'd just been caught in some twisted path of destiny that wasn't going to let them go until it was done with them.

Either way, Luke thought, there was no running from it now. Vader would catch up with him, sooner or later, and if there was any protection in the galaxy that would give him a fighting chance of surviving long enough to get his answers, he knew that it would have to come from the diminutive figure standing in front of the small, shabby, but well-lit and warmly familiar hut.

Yoda had been waiting for them. Since when, and in what frame of mind, Luke had no way of knowing, but the look on his face held no trace of surprise. The ancient Jedi narrowed his eyes, flattened his ears, and sighed – with what? Disappointment. Grief. Resignation.

"Master Yoda."

Wise green eyes looked up at him, then blinked heavily and fell to the ground.

"Master Yoda, I need your help. I – I'm so sorry."

Luke swayed on his feet, hungry and exhausted and finally relieved of the burden of apology. The trip had taken its toll on him, after all. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd slept, and even that sleep had been fitful and shallow. His legs didn't seem like they would support him for much longer, and so he sat, lowered his head, and let himself breathe in the life, the power, the pure peace of this place, and the Force, and his teacher.

"Sorry, are you? Sorry." Yoda's voice was soft, thoughtful, as he contemplated the word and its utter insufficiency. "Defeated you were."

"Yes."

"Hmmm. Suffered a great loss, you have."

Luke wasn't sure if he was talking about his hand, or his father, or maybe just all of it put together, but he looked up through a cloud of hair that had fallen over his eyes and nodded.

"Make you stronger, it will. Come."

Luke glanced over his shoulder at Han, who only shrugged. He struggled to his feet, and followed the Jedi Master further into the swamp.

"Come, come. Sit." An outstretched, three-fingered hand indicated a mossy tree root – almost certainly damp and uncomfortable, but broad enough to support two humans without much risk of dropping them into the mud.

Han shot Luke a questioning gaze this time, and Luke gave him the same resigned shrug. _Might as well._

Yoda seated himself on a smaller, lower root, and leaned heavily on his stick, closing his eyes and lowering his ears in a wrinkled grimace of distaste. "Much has transpired," he said. Slowly, deliberately. "Much has changed. You" – He addressed Han for the first time – "What seek you, from this battle you cannot win?"

"Me?" Han had obviously been taken off guard; he looked to Luke for guidance, but Luke only smiled in a way that he hoped was reassuring. It was a test, of sorts, and he had no right to interfere. "I, uh…with all due respect, your, ah…Your Jediness, I…. Look." He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I know I'm not gonna be a lot of good against Vader. I don't know anything about the Force and I sure as hell can't use it, but…he hurt my friends, all right? I just wanna make sure he'll never do it again."

Yoda frowned, then nodded. Luke wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. He looked down at the muddy ground, scratched a couple of lines in it with his stick, and looked back up, directly into Luke's eyes. "Help you I will," he said, "but forgive you, I cannot."

Luke felt something heavy sink into the pit of his stomach, but he nodded. "I understand."

"To forgive is to accept that which is unacceptable. Mistaken were you. That fact cannot be changed. It must not be forgotten! But it is the past. It is for the future we fight. A future free from the Emperor, free from the Dark Side. Free…from Vader."

Luke swallowed hard.

"Forgive your father, you must not. Horrible are his crimes. Countless are the lives that have been extinguished by his blade. A weakness, will your compassion become."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The Jedi snorted. "Why! Young you are, and reckless…but stupid you are not. Since you were a child, I have watched. I know that for which you long. You will not find it with Vader."

Luke sighed. "But I can feel it. He needs me! He…he wants to help me. Maybe…maybe he's the only one who can."

Yoda narrowed his eyes. "That kind of help, you do not need."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Face him you must. Finish what you have begun. One thing only must you decide."

"What's that?" Han leaned forward, a wary expression on his face.

"Great power there is, in both of you. You feel the Force. Yes…." He looked pointedly at Han.

"Hey, I'm no Jedi."

Yoda sighed, and his frail body shuddered. "Gone are the Jedi. Dead is our way of life. The Force alone remains. The Dark Side grows strong. Fight it you must. The Force flows through all living things." He looked pointedly at Han. "Even those who choose not to acknowledge it."

"Master Yoda, what happened to my father? How did he…?"

The Jedi Master shook his head. "Still, you have not learned to listen. In the past, that story is. And in the past it will remain. Father. Hmph! Raise you did he? Feed you? Protect you? Hold you did he, when you cried? And that is the choice you must make. Fight for love, will you, or for hate? For the past or for the future? For peace…or for revenge?"

And then, for the first time since he'd abandoned his training, Luke heard the voice of Ben Kenobi.

"Your father was only human, Luke. He faced defeat, as you did. He faced temptation, as you do now. He chose a path of personal ambition and revenge."

"Ben?" Luke stood up and turned around, but Ben was nowhere to be seen.

Yoda frowned. "Weak has Obi-Wan become. Soon, his power will fade."

"I must conserve my strength, Luke. Otherwise, I may be unable to help you when you need it most. You must not think of Vader as anything but your enemy. It is an apprentice he desires, and not a son."

Luke tried to remember what it had felt like, that desperate longing that he'd felt in Vader. Had there been any kindness in it? Any love?

Han stood as well, and called out in a voice that was much too loud, as if Ben were far away and he was desperate to be heard. "Look. You don't have to worry about Luke here, all right? He's not gonna turn out like Vader, and he's not gonna join him, either. Right?" He looked at Luke for confirmation.

"Han, I…" Luke looked up at his friend, and he couldn't argue, couldn't express any of the fears and uncertainties that were threatening to tear him apart. "Of course not. But even if I do fight him…. He's so strong, and I…I don't even have a weapon."

Yoda nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. "A problem, this is. Lost your weapon. Your father's lightsaber. You wish to replace it."

"Is it possible?"

"Possible? Perhaps. But a greater weapon you already have."

"A greater weapon?"

Yoda stood and crossed the clearing, the expression of amusement on his face at odds with the gloom in the air. "The Force," he said. "The Force will be your weapon. The Force will be your shield. The Force…will be your medicine."

Luke shook his head and held out his stump. "I don't think the Force can fix this."

Ancient eyes widened. "It already has."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

"Excuse me, General." Leia stood, and the eyes of the conference room were immediately on her.

"Yes, Your Highness?" General Dodonna smiled at her, but his brow was furrowed in concern. "Is everything all right?" He flipped a switch on the holoprojector, and the image – a tactical diagram for the reconnaissance mission they were gathered here to be briefed on – froze.

Leia felt her face grow red. She hadn't really been listening to the presentation. "I'm fine," she lied. "I just…it's so hot in here. Would you mind if I…if I stepped outside for a few minutes?"

Dodonna's smile faded and became a frown. "Princess Leia," he said, "if you need to take some time…."

"Just a moment, General," Leia said. "Just let me get some air."

She excused herself into the hallway and leaned against the opposite wall. She could still hear the muffled voices of her colleagues through the briefing room door, and she closed her eyes, trying in vain to shut them out. How could they do it, just go about their business, planning insignificant intelligence-gathering missions and raids on minor Imperial outposts, when Han and Luke were out there, somewhere, alone and in danger?

Leia was jumpy, restless, full of the need to do something but plagued by the helpless knowledge that there was nothing she could do. She paced from one end of the corridor to the other, and when that did nothing to calm her nerves, she left. She wandered down to the control room, through the hangar, into the medical bay and then the main storage area. Everyone around her seemed to have somewhere to go, something to take care of, and Leia was just there, wandering through the base like an oddly-shaped bolt rattling around in the _Millennium Falcon_'s innards.

The thought of the _Falcon_ took her back to the hangar, and Chewie, in what was probably as much an act of loneliness as of compassion, offered her a tool and a panel full of worn-out power couplings. Leia shook her head; she was no mechanic and Chewbacca knew it, but she sat and watched him for awhile, unable to decide if she was trying to see Han in the tangled connections, or trying just as desperately not to see him.

A couple of pilots called out to her, and she left the _Falcon_ to take a look at what they were working on. They were newer recruits, mostly, young kids who hadn't yet seen the worst of what this war had to offer. They reminded her of a younger version of herself – full of hope and idealism, and sure that they would still be around to see the future for which they were fighting. Any one of these kids could have been Luke, three years ago, and it bothered her a little to think that three years from now, they would probably be more like Luke as he was now.

One of them called out to his wingman, not by his name but by his designation. "Hey, Red Five!"

Leia turned away. It was a coincidence, she knew, and not even a very meaningful one. That hadn't been Luke's callsign in years, and there were at least two or three other pilots who had used it since. But she didn't want to be in the hangar any longer. She excused herself as eloquently as she could, and made a hasty retreat to the command center.

Everyone she met, it seemed, had something for her to do, and none of it would have made any difference. General Rieekan handed her a datapad full of tactical information, and she returned it with a couple of comments that were anything but insightful. Mon Mothma asked for her opinion on a diplomatic issue, but she was forced to admit that she hadn't really been keeping up with the negotiations in question. Leia saw Han and Luke in everything that she did, and she moved from one empty task to another, looking for something that she couldn't put her finger on, telling herself that she was doing all that she could.

In the end, she went to talk to Lando. She found him on one of the lower levels, in an old storage room full of salvaged equipment. "No, that's not the one. Let me see it," she heard him say, and the technician he'd been talking to gave him something that looked like a bulky, oversized datapad. "I don't think this piece of junk is…. Leia."

He handed whatever it was back to the surprised tech and stepped through the maze of cables on the floor to meet her. "How are you doing?" Lando lowered his voice, taking one of her hands and grasping it with both of his in a gesture that would once have seemed showy if not inappropriate, but was now simply comforting.

Leia shook her head. "I…."

Lando glanced over his shoulder at the techs. "Excuse me for a moment while I escort the princess back to her quarters. Now," he said to Leia, as soon as they were out of earshot, "what's wrong?"

"I can't stop thinking of them. I just keep thinking that…there must be something we can do."

"Don't worry about Han. He's the luckiest crook in the galaxy." Lando smiled, but the joke – if that was what it was supposed to be – was lost on Leia.

"This isn't a card game, Lando." His face fell, and Leia felt a twinge of guilt. "I just…. We should have sent ships, or men, or…we could have done _something_."

"I'd send my ships in a heartbeat, if I thought it would do any good."

"You're making excuses!"

Lando shook his head. "There's nothing I can do. We don't even know where they went."

"I do."

"They told you?"

Leia nodded. "Maybe Han was right. We shouldn't be sitting around here, waiting for someone else to fight our battles for us. I think we should go. Something terrible is going to happen." She hadn't been sure of that until the words were out of her mouth, but she heard her own voice and it felt true. "They're on Vanir."

"Vanir?" Lando furrowed his brow. "That's on the Cor Mannar trade route. The Empire's trying to lure us there."

"Or keep us away."

"Or keep us away." Lando nodded, and a look of stunned realization spread over his face. "Reverse psychology. They made it look like they wanted us in the Core, and now we haven't got a single ship in range."

Leia's heart was racing. "We should inform Command."

"It'll take time to deploy the fleet. And we don't know what they'd have waiting for us."

"Han and Luke are still alive," she pleaded, and Lando gave her a long, thoughtful look.

"You think you can find them?"

"We have to."

"I didn't ask if you had to, I asked if you could."

"Yes," she lied. She had no idea if she could repeat whatever trick had helped her to find Luke on Bespin, but it didn't matter. There was nothing to be gained by staying here, and if she failed, at least she'd know that she had tried. "We'll find them. Lando, will you take me?"

"My smallest ships are bulk freighters. We're gonna need a crew," he said, but she could tell that he was considering it.

"What about Chewie? He's just as worried as we are."

"Forget about it. He'd never leave –"

"The _Falcon_." Leia's eyes grew wide. "It's privately owned. The Alliance couldn't stop us."

"They'll try to stop _you_."

He was right. But Leia's mind was made up. She had spent her entire life putting her personal needs, her desires, her feelings on hold for the good of the planet. The good of the galaxy. The good of the Alliance. Well, she didn't see what good any of those things would be without Han and Luke in them.

She took a deep breath. "Not if we don't give them the chance."

"Leia…"

"This is what we all want, isn't it? Vader dead, the Empire destroyed. Luke and Han are doing what every person here has only dreamed of, and if we can help them, we should."

Lando nodded slowly. "A princess, a Wookiee, and a not-so-legitimate businessman. We'll be the best strike team in the galaxy." There was only a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"I'll go talk to Chewie. Gather what supplies you can, and Lando?"

"Yes?"

"Don't let anyone else know what you're up to."

It was only a matter of hours until the princess found herself seated behind the Wookiee and the businessman in the cockpit of the _Falcon_, with the Alliance all but forgotten behind her and the brilliance of the Galactic Core ahead. She leaned forward to get a better look as the ship made the final preparations for the jump to lightspeed. _Vanir_. It had the dubious distinction of being one of the few Core worlds that she had never visited before, and with the minimal information that her search of the base's computer system had turned up, she didn't have much of an idea of what to expect. It didn't really matter, though; Han and Luke were there.

Leia felt like she should have been afraid, or at the very least nervous, but the best she could manage at the moment was a vague sense of guilt about the Alliance she had left behind. She hadn't really expected to get away without some sort of argument, but Command had accepted whatever Lando had come up with to explain his and Chewie's departure. They wouldn't know that their princess had also been onboard until they found the brief, apologetic holo she had left with Artoo, and by then it wouldn't matter anymore.

She had left behind almost everything that she knew, but Leia – just Leia, with no titles or airs – felt more like herself than she had in years. For the first time since the Death Star had destroyed Alderaan, she was going home.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

"Now reach out," Luke said. "Good. Feel the Force…. Call it to you."

Han closed his eyes and extended his hand, half-expecting his blaster to react as immediately as it had for Luke, minutes before. He envisioned the weapon – that wasn't too hard, he probably could have rebuilt the thing in his sleep – and tried to imagine it flying across the room, landing in his outstretched hand just as another, long-lost blaster had found its way to Vader's. _Come on_, he thought, pretty sure that that wasn't what Luke meant by "calling" to it, but just as sure that it wouldn't do any harm to try.

Nothing happened. That probably shouldn't have surprised him, Han thought, but it almost did. He tried again. More nothing. "I don't think this is working, kid."

Luke looked up from his cross-legged position on the floor and gave him what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. "It will," he promised. "You're getting the crash course. I think this is supposed to be..." He screwed up his face in a mockery of a serious expression. "Lesson five hundred and eighty two."

"Crash?" Han let his head fall back, and took in the ceiling of the shuttle's crew quarters in all of its minimally illuminated glory. "Sounds about right to me. You mind if we take a break for awhile? This is starting to give me a headache."

"Yeah, sure."

Luke sounded tired, as if the end of the training session had put an end to his relatively optimistic mood, and when Han looked up, he frowned at what he saw. Luke's smile was gone, his face lined with something that might have been worry or pain, and he held his injured forearm with his left hand, rubbing it now and again with a little too much force to be called a massage.

"Hurts, huh?"

Luke looked up, obviously startled, and Han wished he hadn't said anything. But then he nodded, and the expression on his face softened. "It's funny," he said. "I know it's gone, but sometimes I still think I can feel it." He shook his head. "That probably sounds crazy."

"I dunno." Han said. "I knew this guy once, lost a couple of fingers in a bar fight. Used to..." He saw the look on Luke's face, and his voice trailed off. "You, uh, you probably don't wanna hear it."

"No, it's all right. I guess…I've just got a lot to think about."

"Yeah." An uneasy silence fell over the room. "He was right, you know. Your Jedi Master."

"He usually is." Luke sighed. "About what?"

"Vader." Han still wasn't sure that he believed what Luke had said. Even if the little green swamp creature had more or less confirmed his crazy story, it just didn't make sense. Luke was so…good, as stupid as that sounded, and innocent…yeah, innocent, even after everything he'd been through. And Vader….

"What do you know about Vader?"

"I know he sure as hell ain't your father."

"Han, I already told you –"

"I'm not talking about DNA or mystical Force connections. I'm talking about family, kid, and you and Leia and Chewie are the only one I've ever had. You want to know about my father?" He didn't give Luke a chance to answer. "Well, there's only one thing to know, and it's that I turned out fine without him."

"But I'm like him, Han. You heard what Ben said!"

"What, defeat and temptation? I hate to break it to you, kid, but the Skywalker family ain't exactly got a monopoly on either of those."

"Okay." Luke nodded, but Han didn't think he was really convinced.

"Hey, I just want to make sure that you're gonna do the right thing."

"And what's that, Han?"

Luke looked up at him with big, lost eyes that might have belonged to a child. Han wanted to answer, wanted to have an answer to give him. He never got a chance, though; the ship's computer chimed, pulling him out of that maze of thought before he'd had a chance to begin to make sense of it. There was something cold and uncomfortable in his throat. It was hard to talk around it, but he managed to get out the obvious. "That's the navicomputer."

"Yeah." Luke stood; his face was pale and lost, but there was a cool determination in his step as he made his way back to the cockpit. "Looks like we're here."

Han took his place in the co-pilot's seat and leaned forward over the controls. "He's down there, isn't he?" He didn't need to wait for Luke's answer; whether it was the Force or just a damn good hunch, there was no question about it. Just looking at the planet made him feel…heavy. Like the space outside the window was something thick and slow and rancid, and that it was the planet Vanir that had made it that way.

Luke said nothing.

"You okay over there, kid?"

Luke nodded slowly, cautiously, as though he'd really had to consider the question. "Can you feel that?" he asked. "It's…."

"Bad. Yeah. You want me to land this thing?"

"He's there." Luke pointed to the viewscreen, but his hand shook, and the planet was too far away for Han to tell much from the gesture.

"All right." Han decided to take that as a yes. "Got the coordinates?"

"No, not there," Luke said, ignoring the question. "There's a place…."

"Come on, kid! Focus." They broke through the atmosphere, and the ship, piece of Rebel junk that it was, only bobbed a little before stabilizing itself. _No turbulence_. That didn't make any sense. There weren't any clouds either; the rocky surface of the planet below jutted up at them in astonishing, miniature clarity. Han's stomach turned, and his head began to spin. Not airsick. Han Solo didn't get airsick. This place was poison, and even the recycled air from the shuttle's purification system seemed to take on the stench of it. "Luke," he cried again, "I need you. Come on! North, south? You gotta give me something."

"There." He pointed again, and this time Han was able to make some sense of what he was trying to say. There was a plateau up ahead – not completely flat, but on this planet, probably as close as they were going to get.

"Is that it? You want me to land there?"

"I saw it in my dream."

"Right," Han muttered, and drove the ship north, over the pitted and spiry landscape toward the plateau. It lay at the foot of a mountain range that looked more like a row of oversized stalagmites, tall and thin and perilously steep. _I hope you don't expect me to climb that, kid._

The landing was smooth – too smooth, and he could say the same about the conditions outside. There was no wind, no rain, nothing at all to interrupt the unnatural perfection of the day, and the black rock that the entire planet seemed to be composed of was apparently unmarred by anything so inelegant as plant or animal life. There was just the rock and the sky and the sunlight…and the strange, creeping fog that seemed to sit behind his eyes, pulling down on his senses and his spirits even on what must have been the clearest and most beautiful morning that the galaxy had ever known.

Luke took his share of the rations and supplies and, despite the obvious futility of it, wore an extra blaster on the hip where his lightsaber had been. But whatever it was that Han felt, he knew it was weighing down about a hundred times worse on the kid. He never complained, though, and if his face was drawn and his pace a couple steps above plodding, Han didn't say anything about it. He just shortened his own steps to match, and they crossed the plateau in silence.

The descent into the valley was short but steep, and they had to plant their feet carefully, supporting themselves on the larger stone formations when their path of descent permitted it. The air was clear and scentless and kept – that seemed like the right word for it – at a temperature that was so perfectly attuned to the human body that it couldn't really even be called warm. Han thought ironically that he would have given just about anything for a gust of wind, a drop of rain or even a good old-fashioned thunderstorm, just to prove to himself that this whole suicide mission was real, and that he was really alive in the middle of it.

"It's too quiet," Luke said at last, when they stopped for a minute to catch their breaths at the end of the steep decline. "I don't like this."

"Yeah, me neither." Han looked up at the peak and swallowed hard. It didn't seem so bad anymore, the thought of settling down, having a couple kids, growing old and lazy and so used to having Leia at his side that he forgot to tease her or tell her – had he ever told her? – how beautiful she was. Chewie next door and the Falcon parked out on the lawn. Cooking and cleaning and teaching the kids to fly…. Not this. He didn't want to die here.

He didn't want to die.

It wasn't too late. He could still turn around, get out of here, maybe even get Luke to go with him. But even as the thought occurred to him, Han knew that it wouldn't do any good. Vader was up there. Vader was waiting for them, and until that bastard was dead there wouldn't be any of that – any of those good things, those boring-as-hell but worth-dying-for-anyway things – for any of them.

Han didn't explain any of that to Luke – somehow, he didn't think that he had to. He just took a deep breath, and started up the slope. It was the thought of Leia that drove him forward, and yet all of his memories of her seemed to be of arguing, or being shot at, or saying goodbye. Or kissing. Those weren't so bad. "How about you, kid?"

"How about what?"

Han laughed, and it felt good. Like he meant it, in spite of everything. "Don't pretend you can't read my mind. What are you gonna do, when all this is over? You're still a hell of a pilot, you know, if this Jedi thing doesn't work out."

"I never really thought about it. I –" Luke stopped and cocked his head, as though he was listening for something in the silence. "Han?"

"Yeah, kid, what is it?"

"Get down!"

And then the winds came. They came out of nowhere, ripping across the mountains and throwing stones around like they were snowflakes on Hoth. Han heard Luke's warning, but he acted too late. The first gust threw him off balance and he stumbled, grabbing for purchase on the smooth slope and finding nothing but pebbles and bits of black sand. The latter stung as it flew into his eyes. He cursed, and his curse was swallowed by the gale as he found himself losing ground, sliding a few precious meters back in the direction of the shuttle. "Luke!" he howled into the wind, but if Luke could hear him he was too busy fighting for his own position on the slope to respond.

Han struggled to his feet. He had to walk sideways, at a halting, diagonal pace that seemed to make the climb twice as long and arduous as it had originally been. The smoother parts of the rockface had become nearly impossible to navigate, and he found himself deliberately picking his way along the craggier sides of the trail.

Luke, now ahead of him, had apparently come to the same decision. He used the larger rocks as a kind of intermittent handrail, walking in a bent position that sometimes seemed closer to a crawl. The higher up they climbed, the bigger the rocks became until they weren't really rocks at all but cliffs, caves, and what might have been the beginnings of tunnels.

Luke pulled himself into one of these, a niche in the black rock just barely big enough to hold the two of them, and motioned for Han to follow. They leaned against the walls, struggling to catch their breath as the wind howled across the mouth of the cavern, playing it like an organ.

"You all right?"

Han coughed and grimaced. "I've been better. I thought daddy dearest wanted us here."

"He does."

"Then why –"

"Vader's not the one behind this."

"Then who is?"

"I don't know," Luke gasped between heavy breaths. "The planet. The Dark Side. It feels…bigger here. Stronger."

"All right." Han decided not to comment on how ridiculous that sounded. "So what are we going to do?"

Luke closed his eyes. "There are four men – stormtroopers – in a cavern about…five hundred meters up."

"Only four?" Han fingered his blaster.

"They won't hurt us. They've been ordered to take us alive."

"So you want to just walk into a trap?"

"They'll take us to Vader. I don't like it anymore than you do, but…."

"Yeah, all right. Five hundred meters. Think we can make it?" The winds were still howling outside, and Han had a feeling that they wouldn't let up until the intruders were either gone, or exactly where Vader wanted them.

"I don't think we have a choice."

"Right," Han said, but Luke appeared once more to have lost interest in the conversation. If he wasn't so used to it by now, Han thought, that kind of thing would be starting to piss him off. "What's wrong? What's out there?" He followed Luke's gaze up into the sky – still cloudless and blue, despite the unnatural gale – and thought he saw something. A flash. A spark. Like sunlight glinting off the side of a starship. "There's someone up there."

"It's nothing," Luke said. Too quickly. "A meteor, or –"

"Don't play games with me, kid!" Now Han was angry. "We're in this together, right?"

Luke hesitated. "Right."

"Then tell me why you look like you've just seen a ghost."

"It's not a ghost," Luke said. All the color seemed to have drained out of his face. "It's Leia."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Admiral Piett stood on the bridge of the Executor, in the position that had once been reserved for Lord Vader, and surveyed the galaxy before him. He watched the stars and he waited. He waited and he watched.

"Admiral?" An eager young voice broke the silence.

"Yes?"

"We have a report from the Vanir system. They've confirmed Skywalker's presence."

"Excellent." Piett gave the messenger a nod of approval and turned to his second in command. "Captain?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Contact operations. Tell them to activate. It's time to put Lord Vader's plan into action."

He bowed, clicked his heels together and marched off the bridge. Piett smiled. Everything was going according to plan.

"Excuse me, sir?"

It was the same communications officer who had delivered the good news, but something about his tone dissolved the admiral's expression of triumph and replaced it with a frown. "Yes?" Piett snapped. "What is it this time?"

"There's been another report, sir. Another ship, entering the Vanir system."

"Another ship?"

The young officer nodded. "It appears to be the _Millennium Falcon_."

Piett frowned. "The location of the ship is no longer our concern. My orders were quite clear. They are to be exterminated, not captured."

"But sir, if we activate the weapon now, we will be placing both Lord Vader and the Emperor in considerable danger. Shall I contact the captain, sir, and tell him to abort?"

Piett considered this for a moment. If it was the _Millennium Falcon_, and if they intended to land on Vanir…. "No. Contact Lord Vader, and inform him of the danger. They'll not land without permission."

"But sir, if the Rebel captain –"

"Captain Solo is no threat – to us or to Lord Vader. We will continue with the operation as planned."

"Yes, sir."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

None of this was going the way that he'd imagined it. In his dreams he had scaled a mountain cloaked in fog, marched into the deserted palace with defiance in his step and his head held high, and he had faced his father, if not quite as an equal, at least as a threat. Sometimes he had been alone with Vader; sometimes Han had been at his side. But never had Luke imagined that he would be marching into the fortress a prisoner, with a gauntleted hand wrapped firmly around his wrist and the butt of an Imperial-issue blaster pressed into the small of his back.

His attention was stretched thin; there were too many variables now, too many people to watch, and with all of the eddies and flows of the Force around him, the strongest sensation he had was that of the situation spiraling rapidly out of his control. No, that wasn't right either. He had never been in control here. This was Vader's game – Vader's, or the Emperor's – and none of the rules Luke had thought he had known seemed to be valid anymore.

Their blasters were gone, confiscated by the stormtroopers, and they had abandoned the rest of their provisions as well. Either they'd live through the night or they wouldn't; warm clothes and military rations wouldn't make a difference one way or the other. The Force was all he had now, and at the moment it wasn't telling him very much – or rather, it was telling him too much, and Luke didn't know how to begin to process it.

The wind, at least, had stopped, and the fog that he had dreamed about never came – unless you counted the invisible darkness that covered this place like a shroud. He could hear Han, muttering and grunting behind him, and when he looked up at the sky he could still make out the flash of silver that he knew to be the _Millennium Falcon_.

_Leia. Why are you here?_

He already knew the answer, of course, and probably would have known it even if it weren't for the nervous fear he could feel streaming from the ship to the planet below. It was Leia. How could she not have come, once she knew where her friends were headed? Luke felt a pang of guilt at the thought. He knew that she only had the name of this planet because he had given it to her, and that made her his responsibility too. The future was a tangle of darkness and fear, and he had no idea if, somewhere amidst the uncertainty, there might exist a scenario in which all of his friends made it out of here alive and on the side of goodness and light.

He lost sight of the ship as the stormtroopers led them into the maze of tunnels. Their path was straightforward enough; they made two turns, sticking to the major passages and thankfully not driving their prisoners into the smaller, unlit tunnels that branched out on each side. After the second turn – Luke made a point of remembering this, unsure if he would make it out of here alive but pretty confident that he wouldn't have anyone to guide him if he did – they reached a stone staircase. Another jab of the blaster against his back told him to climb, and as he did, a terrible sinking fear crept its way into his stomach and sat there. Waiting. Just as Vader waited for him in the high-ceilinged room at the top.

"This is it," he called back to Han, gritting his teeth as the stormtrooper twisted his wrist in reproof. "He's up there."

The throne room, at least, was exactly as it had appeared in his dreams. The ceiling was high, the walls rounded and irregular and, like the rest of the planet, free from anything resembling either life or technology. The throne that served as the centerpiece to the room rose up out of the same black rock, too close in shape to an actual chair to have formed naturally and misshapen and distorted enough that it didn't really seem manmade either. At the far end of the room, he saw the window, and through it the two moons. And in front of the window, still and silent except for the ominous drone of his breathing, was Darth Vader.

"My son." His voice echoed in the chamber. "You have come to me at last."

Luke didn't know what to say. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity, trying to read Vader and getting nothing. It was cold, and he was frozen to the spot, with no words, no thoughts, and no hope. "Father," he said at last. "I…."

"He's too good for the likes of you, Vader!" Han's interruption startled the troops, and Luke took the opportunity to twist his hand free. "You'll never know your son as anything but the guy who takes you down."

"Captain Solo." Vader raised his head and stared at Han as though noticing him for the first time. "I am surprised to find you still alive. Your presence here will not be needed." He raised a black-gloved hand, and Luke could only watch in shock and in fear as Han fell to his knees, grasping futilely at his neck as he fought for air.

"Let him go!" It was fear that gave him strength, fear and hatred, but at the moment Luke didn't care. Han had come all this way for him, and he wasn't going to die here, like this. "Let him go, or you lose me too." It was an empty threat, and Vader must have known it. There was nowhere Luke could go, not with the troops behind him and nothing but the throne room ahead. He didn't have a weapon; he couldn't even kill himself, unless he threw himself out of the window, and Vader could probably break that fall too, if he wanted to. "Father," he pleaded. "Let him go."

"As you wish." Vader let his arm fall, and Han collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath in wordless disbelief. "He lives. For now."

"I'm the one you want." Luke resisted the urge to run to Han, to see if he was all right. His presence in the Force was strong; for now, that would have to be enough. "My friends have nothing to do with this."

Vader stepped forward. "You will find, my son, that they have more to do with it than you realize. Captain Solo's presence here was unexpected. And yet…it is his destiny. As it is yours."

Luke felt it all at once, a flood of rage and hatred and pain that came both from within and without as a swift black hand shot out and closed around his arm. Vader pulled him close, holding up the stump and examining it as though he were pleased with his handiwork. Luke tried to pull away, but his strength was no match for Vader's. He could only stand there, humiliated and afraid, while Vader scrutinized his weakness and – if his presence in the Force was any indication – drew a black satisfaction from what he saw.

"You are damaged," he said.

Luke had nothing to say to that.

"The Emperor can make you whole."

His tone didn't change. There was nothing in it of the loving father that Luke had once imagined, nothing of the heroic pilot, and nothing of the Jedi he had yearned to follow. But there was something. The hunger, the hatred – those were still there. They still surged from Vader, flowed into Luke and teased at the anger and confusion in his heart. But they were joined by something else, and it was this, not the darkness, that told Luke to stop resisting. It was sympathy, maybe. Understanding. Vader spoke as if he were a machine in need of repair and yet….

Luke pulled away, and his father let him. He stepped back, cradling his arm against his chest not because it hurt – it didn't – but because he could still feel the half-buried memories that Vader had seared into his skin. The armor that wasn't just armor. The breathing that was intimidating by chance and not design. The hand that had closed around his arm with a superhuman strength – a perfect copy of the wonderful, horrible, mechanical hand that Vader had all but promised him in his dreams.

_The Emperor can make you whole._

Luke's eyes grew wide. "Like he did for you." He shook his head. "What happened to you, Father?"

Vader didn't answer. He strode to the window and looked out over the jagged, barren landscape. When at last he spoke it was with his back turned, in a tone of voice that may have sounded regretful or nostalgic were it not for the ceaseless mechanical breathing that accompanied it. "Your compassion is wasted on me."

"Compassion?" It was Han who spoke next. "He's got no compassion for you. Do you, kid?"

Luke looked at Han, then back at his father. Ben had called Vader human, but what he was now…. "I need to know the truth."

"You are weak. You have lost much, young one. But there is nothing that cannot be replaced. Or returned." Vader turned slowly, pushing aside the folds of his cape to reveal the long ebony hilt of his lightsaber – and then, hanging beside it, another.

Luke stepped forward automatically. It was just like his dream, and as he reached out to take his father's weapon, he half expected the tingling sensations at the end of his right arm to materialize. To make him like his father, in flesh as well as in spirit.

"It is yours," Vader promised. "Yes. I feel the hunger within you. I have retrieved your weapon. Your ship awaits you in the hangar below. The Emperor can repair your body and complete your soul. It is your destiny."

"No." Luke's voice shook, and it was a physical effort to lower his arm and step away. "You say you'll replace what you took from me, but you can't. No one can. My father was a Jedi and a hero. Not a monster. Can you give that back? Can you?" He was shouting.

"A monster?" Vader relished the word; a dark amusement threaded its way into Luke's consciousness, dancing around his rage and tempting it. Calling to it. Making it grow. "I am no more a monster than you are, my son."

"You're wrong," Luke said, but he could hear the uncertainty in his own voice.

"What about Alderaan?" Han's voice cut across the room like a well-tuned vibroblade. "You blow up an entire planet, just to make a point? Sounds like a monster to me."

"Alderaan…" Vader mused. There was a note of surprise in his voice, as though he'd forgotten Han was even in the room. "Alderaan was unfortunate, but under the circumstances, quite necessary. You do not understand the importance of fear. Of power. Of control. It is why the Empire – not I alone – chose to destroy your princess's planet. I imagine it is why my son did nearly the same thing to tens of thousands of my troops."

"That's not the same thing!" Luke cried. "The Death Star was a weapon."

"My men – the men that you killed – were only following orders. Do you call them monsters as well?"

"No, of course not, but –"

"Then were you already so hopelessly in love with the princess that you were willing to take her revenge?"

Luke clenched his fist. "It wasn't revenge. It was war. I had to do it, because if I didn't…you would have done it again."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I know you, father. You've been in my head, in my dreams every night and I know you. Power is the only thing you love. Does it make you happy? You say it'll make me complete, but did it ever complete you?"

"Your hatred makes you strong. Take your weapon." Vader took the lightsaber from his belt and held it, testing its weight in his massive cybernetic hand. He held it out to Luke. "Take your revenge. Kill me or join me. The Emperor will have you either way."

"No."

"Then allow me to tell you a story." He turned back to the window. The sun had begun to sink in the sky, and the fog was beginning to roll in. "The story of a beautiful princess and her untimely death at the hands of…shall we say, a monster?"

Luke glanced reflexively at the sky. Leia was still up there. She was alive and unharmed, and far enough from what was happening here. "What did you do to her?" he asked. "She's got nothing to do with this. Leave her alone."

"You are not as perceptive as I had thought. It is not what I have done to her" – Vader looked directly at Han – "but what I have done to your ship."

Han said something; Luke didn't really hear it. He was with the ship, then, following the old circuits and pathways, diving into the heart of the machinery, into what had once felt like some kind of unfinished repair work. A lot of dead ends. They were alive now, and strong. Stronger than the blasts he had felt from that Star Destroyer. Stronger than anything he had felt since the Death Star. The _Falcon_ was going to burn. And Leia was going to burn with it.

"No."

"Search your feelings," Vader taunted. "Trust your visions. You have foreseen this."

"No!" The lightsaber was in his hand. He swung blindly, not caring that he had no strategy or plan, not caring that the Force burned within him, driving his blows with a pure, intoxicating hatred. Again and again his blade hit Vader's and was repulsed. The impact of his own blows forced him to step back, and again and again he returned, hacking away at the air with a vengeance that knew nothing of futility. His arm grew tired and then numb, and still he continued his attack, until at last Vader caught one of his blows and held it, and used it to push him back.

He twisted his blade, forcing Luke into a defensive position. The crossed lightsabers were mere centimeters from his face, burning and crackling and sending spots dancing in front of his eyes. Luke's arm shook. Vader pressed down, his own blade held firmly in a two-handed grip. Luke did the only thing he could; he turned his lightsaber in an attempt to break the hold. He succeeded, but only for a second before Vader seized control, using the movement to his own advantage to twist Luke's arm into an untenable position and send his weapon skidding across the room.

Luke fell to his knees. He had to think, had to do something to save Leia, but his mind was throbbing with molten hatred. Death burned in front of his face in the form of his father's lightsaber. _Please, Father. Don't hurt her. I'll do whatever you want._

He never had time to form the words. There was a shout from behind him, and Vader drew in a sharp, hissing breath of surprise. Sabers clashed again, and through the sweat that ran into his eyes Luke could see Han, wielding his weapon with a wild, haphazard style that had caught Vader off-guard, but wouldn't give him much of a chance in the long run. Luke struggled to his feet. He was exhausted, but not hurt. His head was pounding, and as he watched Han swing at Vader it was like seeing double; he saw their bodies but he could also see the fear, the shock…and the love. Leia was with them too, and without realizing it Han had turned her presence into strength. He wouldn't win, but for the moment he was holding his own, and whether he knew it or not, it was all for her.

Luke looked around, trying desperately to take stock of the situation. There was nothing in the room that he could use; everything was carved from the same rock, extensions of the walls, floor, and ceiling. The only weapons other than the two lightsabers were those same Imperial blasters that had been used to drive them up here in the first place. Luke wondered if he had any chance of taking one, if he could somehow manage to get it into his hand and do some damage with it before the other three troopers could turn fire on him. He could block laser bolts well enough with his lightsaber, but Han had that, and Luke didn't dare take it away when it was likely the only thing standing between his friend and an untimely death. Still, a blaster was better than nothing, and the stormtroopers were distracted. He could do it, if he focused – and it was probably Han's only hope.

He closed his eyes, deliberately screwing up his face in what he hoped looked like an expression of pain or frustration. Let them think that he was hurt, that survival was the only thing on his mind. He reached out, and he could feel the blaster. He lifted it up, slowly, out of its holster. There. He had it.

Han cried out, and Luke's eyes flew open, his concentration shattered. He heard the blaster clatter to the floor, but the sound was drowned out by the screams of his friend, and the flood of rage, the roaring white noise that filled his head and turned the world around him into a crimson blur. He watched Han stagger backwards, still holding the lightsaber in one hand but clutching at his injured shoulder with the other. He was all right; Vader had hit him, but it wasn't bad. Luke clung to that, but only for a second. All he could hear were Han's words. _I'm talking about family, kid, and you and Leia and Chewie are the only one I've ever had._

Vader had hurt them. He had hurt them all. Luke couldn't remember getting to his feet or running across the room. He had no idea why the stormtroopers hadn't shot him, or how he'd managed to avoid their fire if they'd tried. All he could feel was the anger, the hatred, the all-consuming lust for revenge…and the blaster, in his hand at last, pointed at his father with the safety off and the power gauge set firmly to _kill_.

And then it fell to his side, silent and impotent, as a cackling laughter filled the room.

The figure that emerged from the shadows was frail and emaciated. He stepped forward slowly, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane with even more heavily gnarled hands. The air grew thicker and colder with his presence, and Luke felt sluggish, as though it had become physically harder to move. It was the darkness that had haunted his dreams, the shroud that had hung over this planet since they'd landed. It all came from this man.

They were too late. The Emperor had been here all along.

"No," Luke whispered, but no one seemed to hear.

Vader sank to one knee. His weapon fell dark at his side. "Master."

"Lord Vader." The Emperor's voice was dry and harsh, and he spoke Vader's name with a hatred, a disgust that rivaled Vader's own sickening fear. "Does this amuse you?"

Vader didn't answer the question. "I present to you my son, Luke Skywalker."

"No!" Luke cried out, and this time both Vader and the Emperor looked at him. He raised the blaster again, vaguely aware of the futility of the action but unwilling to let reason overcome the cold, black feeling of betrayal and the hot, searing fire of his rage.

"It is for your own good, my son. In time, you will see the wisdom of my ways."

"You've never done anything but hurt me, Father. I have no reason to trust you now."

The Emperor laughed. "Interesting," he said, turning his attention from Luke to Han and then back again. "And a complete waste of my time. Your plan has failed, Lord Vader. Kill the princess. Turn Skywalker over to me. And as for this smuggler…his death will be all the more powerful at the hands of my new apprentice."

"What are you talking about?" Han shot back. "I'm not gonna fight Luke. It's you and Vader we came here to take out. Right, kid?"

"Oh, but I'm afraid it is too late for that. Look at him. Look what he has become." Luke could feel the Force rippling and twisting in the hands of its dark master as the Emperor stared unblinking at Han. "You did…_promise_."

Han looked at Luke, and the weight of those words was reflected in his smoldering eyes. The lightsaber was still alive and humming in his hand, but he lowered it and shook his head. "What do you know about that?"

"Ah, my friend…" The Emperor's expression melted into a mockery of a frown. "You will find that I know a great many things. I know how you feel about…the princess. She will soon be dead, you know. And it is all young Skywalker's fault. Look at him. See the hatred in his eyes. The Dark Side has already begun to take him."

"Luke would never hurt Leia."

"Han." Luke's hand holding the blaster shook, but he didn't lower it. He wasn't sure that he could.

"He has taught you his Jedi ways, has he not? Feel the anger burning within him. Already he has become like his father."

"No."

"Han!" Luke cried again. "He's manipulating you! Don't let him do this!"

"Ah, my dear apprentice…that, I am afraid, is beyond his feeble skills." The old man turned to Luke with an agility that belied his age and infirmity. "He is weaker even than you." His words were mocking; Luke swallowed his anger, but he was no longer sure of Han's ability or willingness to do the same. "Defend yourself. You will have no choice. For you are your father's son. And he did…_promise_."

Han raised the lightsaber. Luke only shook his head.

"Han is my friend," he said. "That's something you could never understand."

"He lies." This was directed to Han again. "My young apprentice has no need for your friendship. He wants you dead, and your princess for his own. He is the one who brought her here, after all."

"That…that's not true," Han retorted, but he assumed an offensive stance and took a step in Luke's direction.

"Skywalker is the only thing standing between you…and your love."

Han's voice grew dark. "Skywalker."

"Han!" Luke ducked just in time, dropping the blaster as he rolled to evade the blow. He rose to his knees, unhurt but unarmed, and shoulder to shoulder with his father.

"Luke." Vader held out his hand, and with it the thick ebony hilt of his own lightsaber. "You must defend yourself."

"That isn't what you want me to do. Han!" he cried again. "Listen to me. He doesn't want me dead. He's using you. Please. I'm not like him." Luke sidestepped another, halfhearted blow. "I would never hurt Leia. You know that!"

Han looked up. "I…I hate you," he said, but it almost sounded like a question.

"I am _not like him_," Luke repeated. He stepped back, out of the path of his own blade, and he could feel the wall, probably less than a meter behind him. If Han took one more step forward, he would have no choice but to take the weapon. To defend himself.

"You…you brought her here."

"Please." Luke fought the urge to try Ben's hypnosis for himself. "He's the one who's trying to hurt Leia. She came here on her own. We have to save her! Listen to me." He knew that his ability with the Force was nothing next to what the Emperor could do with a word and a look; he clung to the ties of friendship instead. "Please," he repeated. "For Leia."

Something snapped. Han turned away. He let out a wordless cry and lunged forward, charging the old man with the lightsaber as though it were some kind of lance. Luke thought he might have cried out too; he would replay the scene in his mind for years and never really remember. He would only know that he had stood there frozen with fear as the Emperor raised a single hand in defense, throwing Han across the room where he hit the wall, dropped the lightsaber, and crumpled to the ground in a still, silent heap.

"Han!" Luke screamed, and then he forced his voice to steady. "You." He faced the Emperor, and fury rose like bile in his throat. He was no longer afraid. There were things in the world stronger than fear, and these were what he fed on now. "You'll never get away with this. Not with what you did to Han…and not with what you did to my father."

The Emperor laughed. "You are a fool, my young Jedi. It was not I who made your father what he is." Wrinkles split his face like cracks as his mouth spread into a gaping chasm of a smile. "Nor is it I who have doomed your princess, although I must admit, it was quite a stroke of brilliance on the part of Lord Vader. It has been rather costly for my fleet to track down your insipient Rebel friends. When they retreat – and trust me, they will – where you think they will go? The location of your base is immaterial. Wherever your friends have hidden themselves, they will soon be dead and your rebellion destroyed. And it will all be thanks to my dear friend and apprentice."

"No." Luke exhaled the word. "That's not possible. You can't destroy the entire planet with a ship."

The Emperor's face fell in a mockery of a disappointed expression. "That is quite true," he said. "The explosive power of your father's weapon pales in comparison to that which you destroyed. But is more than enough, I believe, to ensure the extermination of your base and your pitiful rebellion. They will die. They will all die. And it was all your father's idea."

Vader ignited his weapon. "It is true, my son."

"No."

"I feel your hatred," the Emperor hissed. "You want him dead by your hand. Do it! Avenge your princess. Avenge your smuggler friend."

Luke glanced at his lightsaber and at Han's lifeless form huddled beside it. A strange clarity settled over him. He could fight. He could strike out at Vader – but he wouldn't stand a chance. He was no match for his father. He never had been.

_The Force will be your weapon._

Master Yoda's words echoed in his mind, and Luke smiled. He wondered if the ancient Jedi had ever intended them literally.

"Take your weapon!" the Emperor cried. "Destroy your father and take your place at my side."

Luke called the lightsaber to him. Its familiar weight was reassuring in his hand, and as he ignited it, raised it, and took a defensive stance, he couldn't be sure whether the weapon was obeying his commands or vice versa. When Vader advanced, Luke parried. Every move that he took was defensive. He took no risks, but let his father lead him around the room in what may have been a carefully choreographed dance, had both their lives not depended on it.

The sabers hummed and clashed, and Luke let a part of himself follow the bursts of energy that they made. His weapon was just like his ship, an extension of his body. An extension of himself. The Force flowed through its circuitry the same as blood flowed through his veins, and with each crash, each flash of light he felt it, tying his weapon to Vader's. He could have shut it down, twisted the mechanism or shattered the crystal and wiped that blood-red blade from the battlefield, but it wouldn't be enough. Luke knew that, and he fought on.

"You are holding back, my son."

"I never hold back."

He took another blow, retreated another step. Vader followed, and for a moment their blades locked. The beams sparked and sizzled against each other, and Luke felt the mechanisms in their hilts sing out in response. Full power. He rode it – that was what it felt like, letting it carry him like he was a speeder caught in an updraft. It carried him up through Vader's blade, through the hilt and into the arm that wasn't an arm. Into the machine that was his father.

His dream came back to him a thousand times, the strange tingling sensation, the almost-feeling that he'd had in Vader's promise of a hand, and the pain. So much pain. He fought it, tuned it out. It didn't matter, Luke told himself. Didn't matter what Vader felt. He was a machine. Like a ship. Like a vaporator. All he had to do was find the problem and fix it. And the problem here was that the machine was working at all.

_There._

It was so easy to destroy, he thought. So much easier than to repair. He twisted the machinery, turned it against itself, tore the wires and crossed the circuits until the feedback was almost too excruciatingly brilliant to bear. "I never hold back, Father," he repeated, and pressed forward with his blade.

Vader inhaled, took an awkward step back, and then his fingers holding the lightsaber quivered and froze. It fell from his grip, and when he tried to reach out for it his body responded in all the wrong ways to his command. "Luke…" he gasped. He was still breathing, but not as easily as he had been, and his voice sounded hollow and weak. "What…have you done?" His knees gave way, and he sank to the floor.

Luke hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking Vader's lightsaber. He wouldn't use it, didn't even want to touch it, but he clipped it to his belt – and then he ran.

"Excellent!" The Emperor cried, and his laughter rang out in the room once more. "You have grown strong, my young apprentice. Now fulfill your destiny. Finish him."

Luke didn't answer. His only goal was to make it across the room to where Han had fallen. He did, and he knelt next to his friend. A weak pulse confirmed what the Force had already told him. Han was alive, but he was badly hurt, and unless Luke could do something to help him, he wouldn't have much time.

"Han? Can you hear me?"

"Leave him," the Emperor commanded. Luke could feel his presence, darker and closer with each tap of his cane on the floor.

"No," Luke whispered. "Han, you have to get up. You have to get out of here."

Han moaned. The Emperor drew closer.

"Your place is with me, young Jedi. You will fulfill your destiny…or die."

"Then kill me," Luke replied. "I won't leave him."

"As you wish," the Emperor said, and the world began to burn.

Luke felt his head fly back, hitting the stone floor with a crack. He was dimly aware of his arms and legs, flying out aimlessly in every direction, grasping instinctively for relief that could not be there, that could not exist. His back arched; his body wanted nothing more than to get away. But there was no away, because it – whatever it was – was in him, sapping his strength and draining away anything that had ever been good. There was no life. There was no Force. There was only pain, writhing through Luke and writhing through the universe until all of them – his body and the universe and the pain – became one and the same.

"Han!" he cried, and then, "Father!" But if either could hear him, Luke knew that they were in no position to respond. He looked up, and through the crimson lightning that stained and blotted his vision he could see the face of the Emperor, twisted in a sadistic joy as he watched the silver-white bolts fly from his own fingers, burning and crippling and killing the boy who had dared to defy him. "Ben!" he called. "Ben…"

_Luke._

He heard his name, felt a flash of cooling light flood into his body, and for a moment he was sure that he had died. "Ben?" Was it possible, after all that he had done? Had Ben really come for him? Luke had never given much thought to the afterlife, but at this particular moment there was nothing that he wanted more than to disappear into the Force, to know nothing but peace and calm and goodness. To be where Ben was. To be free.

_Luke! _ The voice called to him again, and Luke was surprised to feel cold stone pressing against the side of his face.

"Ben?"

_Go, Luke! We haven't much time._

Luke lifted his head, raised himself up on one elbow, and his arm trembled, threatening to drop him back to the floor. He thought at first that the Emperor's attack must have damaged his vision; he could still see the lightning, or whatever it was, branching out across the room like veins of deadly white fire. But they shimmered and blurred, and the air around them glowed with a faint golden sheen. Luke blinked hard. Nothing changed. He tried moving his legs, and was mildly surprised to find that he could.

_Ben?_

_Help him, Luke. I haven't the strength to explain._

Luke wasn't sure if Ben could see him, but he nodded anyway. He didn't know if he could stand, and so he didn't try. He crawled back to Han's side and touched his forehead. It was clammy and cold, but his chest still rose and fell and his presence in the Force was bright and warm, if distant. Other than the wound on his shoulder, he appeared uninjured to the naked eye. "You'll be fine," Luke said, for his own benefit as much as for Han's, but he had to know the truth. He closed his eyes, and let the Force show him the rest.

It was bad. Luke didn't know what he'd been expecting – something he could put back together just like he'd rewired the generators on Hoth, maybe, but the human body wasn't a machine and if he was a decent mechanic, the closest thing he'd had to medical training was a first aid course the Alliance had made him take when he made commander. There was blood, so much blood, and broken bones, and there didn't seem to be any way to knit any of it back together. He could see it all, and he didn't even know what he was looking at. "Han?" Luke grabbed his shoulder and shook.

"Hey…kid…." Han opened his eyes for a second, then closed them again as if he were going to sleep.

"No!" Luke shook harder. This had been in that course, right? You weren't supposed to let someone go to sleep when they were…like this. "You have to wake up, Han. You have to get out of here."

"…'m tired, kid. Leave me alone."

"Han!" Luke was almost yelling now, and Han rewarded him with a look that was annoyed, maybe a little pissed off…but definitely awake, and definitely here. "You have to get back to the ship. They've done something to the _Falcon_. Do you understand?" Han nodded. "It's…I think it's rigged to the landing sequence. You have to deactivate it. You can't let the _Falcon_ land. Do you hear me?"

Han nodded, more or less alert. "What about Leia?"

"She's up there. Lando and Chewie are with her. See if you can get them to the shuttle."

"Shuttle…" Han sat up with a grimace. "Don't know if I can make it that far."

"All right." Luke tried to keep his voice calm, but he didn't think he was succeeding. Han was right. There was no way he'd make it back down the mountain in his condition. Even if he did get a ship and make it to hyperspace…. _No. Don't think about that._ "There's another ship." Luke reached out, into the tunnels, found what he was looking for and traced what felt like the shortest path. He could feel Vader's trail all over it, and it made him shiver – but it was exactly what they needed.

"I don't know any Imperial codes."

"It's not Imperial. He…he said he had my ship, that it was waiting for me." Luke's eyes grew wide. "It's my X-Wing. The one I left on Bespin. It feels…okay. I don't think he's done anything to it."

Han nodded, and when he had his directions, he pulled himself to his feet. He was pale and his steps were slow and shuffling, but he could walk. "I'll get her out of there, kid," he promised. "And hey, Luke. If I don't come back…"

_You will_. Luke wanted to promise that, wanted to make it true, but all that he could see of the future was dark and hot and lonely. Instead, he just listened, like he guessed a good friend should.

"Take care of her for me, okay?"

Han stepped through the globe of Ben's protection, and the stormtroopers stepped up to block his passage.

"Let him go," Luke said, but the troops didn't move.

_Luke._ Ben's voice wavered, and the barrier guttered. _Luke! _The plea was clear enough; Luke didn't need to hear anymore.

He had no idea what he was doing, but that had stopped mattering a long time ago. He followed Ben's presence, let it lead him. He gave his strength to the barrier and felt his body weaken in response, felt distant twinges of a discomfort that wasn't quite pain as he let the Force absorb the Emperor's attack. "Han! Go!" Luke pushed, too hard, and felt the barrier grow. Felt the stormtroopers step back. Felt Ben slip away. Again, he was stretched too thin. "Go!" he screamed, and Han did.

The Emperor bared his teeth in rage, and intensified his onslaught. Luke could only stand there as the barrier flickered and faded, leaving only the lightning to consume his body and the darkness to consume his soul.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

Han wasn't quite sure what was keeping him going. He didn't want to think too hard about it, just like he didn't want to think too hard about the fact that he was dizzy, or that his fingers and toes had started to go numb, or that his chest and stomach felt like they were on fire. He definitely didn't want to think about Luke, once the screaming had started up again, and he didn't want to think about what was going to happen to Leia if he didn't make it to the ship. So he thought about the ship itself, and repeated Luke's directions over and over again, and tried not to worry too much about how he was going to get there.

"Down the stairs, second right, third tunnel on the left," he muttered. He took the stairs slowly, just putting one foot in front of the other and hoping that he wouldn't fall. Through some twist of luck, he didn't, and he repeated his mantra again at the bottom. "Second right, third tunnel on the left."

The second right led him outside to a narrow path that hugged the side of the mountain. A fog had begun to wrap around the peak, and for a moment he panicked, thinking that his vision had begun to fail him as well. He couldn't see his feet and he could barely feel them; he stumbled more than once and finally fell, hard. A jolt of pain shot up his side, and Han felt tears well in his eyes. "Just a couple of broken ribs," he told himself, not at all sure if that was an accurate assessment of his condition, but not willing to think that there might be anything worse than that wrong with him.

The X-Wing was waiting, just as Luke had promised, in a small makeshift hangar at the end of a high-ceilinged passage. Han was a little surprised to see a power generator and a small assortment of maintenance equipment – it made sense, but he'd been so used to nothing but rock on this planet that the technology looked more than a little out of place. Like something from another life. Vader had cleaned up the ship, at least on the outside, and the astromech droid that whistled a greeting at him was clearly of Imperial design. Han grimaced, and sighed to himself, "I knew there was a reason I stopped flying these things."

The droid said something; Han had never particularly given a damn what any astromech was saying, and certainly wasn't about to take the time to try to communicate with this one. It was powered up and already in its socket – waiting for Luke, he realized – and that was going to have to be enough. "Is this ship ready to leave?" he called to it. The answer sounded more or less like an affirmative.

"All right." Han grimaced as he pulled himself onto the first step of the boarding ladder. His shoulder, his side, half of his body was burning, and his fingers kept threatening to slip on the cool metal. He hooked his elbow over the rungs and dragged himself up, one excruciating step at a time. When he got to the top, he was drenched with sweat and out of breath, and as he collapsed into the pilot's seat he closed his eyes, let his head fall back, and thought how easy it would be just to fall asleep here, and let it all be over with.

The droid beeped at him, and he opened his eyes to scowl at it over his shoulder. Han didn't like the idea of trusting a hunk of metal with his life, especially when that hunk of metal came from the Empire, but at this point he didn't have much of a choice. "Give me a minute," he muttered. "It's been a long time since I've flown one of these things." He pushed the button that would close the canopy and glanced down at the ship's computer, which was currently occupying itself with the vital task of translating the astromech's mechanical chitchat. At the moment, it read "Greetings, Master Skywalker."

"Lovely," Han grumbled under his breath. Not only was he stuck entrusting his life to a droid, he was stuck entrusting it to a droid who called him Master Skywalker. He switched off the computer screen and reached instead for the com controls. Luke had been right about one thing, at least. Vader didn't seem to have messed with the ship too much. It had been programmed with a couple of Imperial frequencies, but the Alliance ones were still there, too. He scrolled through the list until he found one that he knew the _Falcon_ would recognize and opened a channel.

"Leia?" he called. "Come in, Leia. It's Han."

"Han?" It was Lando's voice that answered.

"Lando? Is that you?" He didn't have the energy to be angry anymore.

"Of course it is, you old scoundrel. I'm here with Leia and Chewie."

Chewie roared.

"Hey, Chewie, how's it going?" He tried to keep his tone light, but he knew that Chewie, at least, wouldn't be fooled. His reply was full of concern, and Han decided it was better not to acknowledge it.

"Han?" This time Leia spoke, and Han gripped the comlink as hard as his fingers would let him, aware that this – that anything – might be the last thing she ever said to him, and desperate to hang on to it for as long as he could. "Han, we've been orbiting for hours but there's no place to land. We need you to direct us – "

"No!" Han was surprised at the violence in his own voice, and he guessed Leia must have been too; she didn't answer. "Don't land the ship. Is Lando there?"

"Yes, I'm here."

"Good. I need you to get the Falcon into the atmosphere. As low as you can without initiating the landing sequence. Do you hear me? You can't start the landing sequence!"

"All right, I hear you." Lando sounded skeptical.

"Good," Han said. There was no time to explain. "Once you get her down as far as you can, open the top hatch."

"What are you planning to do?"

"Just do it!"

"Fine. I'll get her into the atmosphere and open the top hatch."

"Thanks," Han said, and cut the connection. "All right, now how do we get this thing off the ground?"

The controls were more or less intuitive, and the fact that he hadn't been in the cockpit of a snub fighter for at least a decade proved to be less of a problem than he'd feared. The ship was in decent shape for a Rebel fighter, and the droid, despite having been programmed by Vader or one of his cronies, seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Han wasn't Luke, and more than willing to help him with his unconventional mission.

He lifted out of the cavern-turned-hangar and began visual scanning of the skies. He felt better sitting down, but the dizziness had turned to lightheadedness, and he was seeing spots that he could only tell himself came from the sun. He'd be all right, as soon as he got out of here, got himself to a hospital ship. He had to be all right, because there was too much that he had to make up – to Leia, to Lando, to the whole damn universe.

"There," he said, half to himself and half to the overly eager droid. "They're up over that rock formation" – not that that was especially descriptive, on this planet – "I'm gonna see if I can get above them."

"Han!" The com system buzzed back into life.

"Yeah, I see you." Han took one hand from the controls to rub at his eyes, but the ship remained a _Falcon_-shaped blur. "Is the hatch open?"

"Chewie's getting it now."

Han positioned the X-Wing directly above the Falcon and punched the canopy controls. The droid screamed until the wind drowned it out. Han wondered if it was possible to be in so much pain that you couldn't even feel pain anymore, and then decided that it didn't really matter. He forced himself to his feet. There was no way that he could stand against the wind, and so he didn't try. He jumped, and it was more like falling. He fell, and let Chewie's arms deliver him home.

"You're all right!" Leia was there in an instant, with her arms around him, but she pulled away almost as soon, and the expression on her face was one of shock and horror. "No, you're not," she said. "Han? Han, what's wrong?"

"Where's Lando?" He could barely whisper. "Get me to the cockpit."

Chewie growled his dissent.

"You – you need to get to a medical center." Leia shook her head, unable or unwilling to believe what was happening. "The ship can wait. It –"

"No it can't. Vader's got some kind of bomb rigged to the landing gear."

"That's not possible. How…?"

"It's possible, all right? Luke saw it. It's there. You need to get out of here."

"But why…?"

"It's powerful enough to take out the whole base."

Leia's face went white, and Han knew that she understood. She nodded and wrapped her arm around his waist while Chewie supported him on the other side. Together, they made it to the cockpit.

"Han." Lando stood, concern written as obviously across his face as it had been on Leia's. "Are you all right? Sit down."

Han shook his head. "No time," he said. "Look." He grabbed Lando by the sleeve and pulled him aside. He didn't really have the strength to force anyone to do anything, but Lando followed him, and he listened. "I get it," Han said. "You did what you had to do. And you got us off Bespin alive. I guess I should thank you for that. If I make it out of here, maybe I will. But in the meantime you still owe me." He explained the situation as well as he could. "You've gotta get Leia and Chewie out of here. Take Leia in one of the escape pods. Chewie'll get the other."

"What about you?" Leia's voice rang out in panic.

"I'll be all right." Han coughed again. "Never been anything wrong with this ship that I couldn't fix, right?"

Chewie's answer thundered in the cockpit, and Han shook his head.

"I can't let you do this, buddy. I need you to take care of –" He coughed. "I need you to take care of her. Get her to the shuttle. It's…" He called up a surface map on the computer screen. "Here. Wait for Luke if you can. Chewie!" He looked his oldest friend in the eye and pleaded. "I need you to do this. "

Lando nodded and took Chewie by the arm. "Come on," he said, and led the Wookiee out into the corridor, toward the escape pods. Han and Leia were left alone in the cockpit.

"Han, you…" Leia reached out and touched the side of his face, just like she had when he'd left her the last time.

"I'll be fine."

"No, you won't."

He didn't have an answer to that, so he pulled her close and kissed her. It was their first kiss since Bespin, and everything that he should have done, everything that he should have said and hadn't…it was all there. He could only hope that she could see it, that she understood what it meant.

That kiss should have gone on forever, but it couldn't and it didn't, and when it ended Leia looked up at him with eyes that were deeper and darker and more desperate than he had ever seen them. She opened her mouth to speak. "I…"

"Shhh." He took one of her hands in both of his and held it against his cheek. His hands were cold and numb and trembling, but hers was so strong and so solid that he thought it might hold him here. He wanted to say that he was sorry, that he would be back, that he would give her the future that they both wanted, even though neither of them had ever dared to say it. But he didn't say any of those things. Instead, he let her go, and as her fingers trailed from his he looked her in the eye and said what he should have said a long time ago.

"I love you."

"I…" Leia took back the hand he'd been holding, caressing it with her other hand as though she could still feel him there. "I know."

Han gave her what he hoped was a casual smile. "Be happy, Leia."

Her eyes shone with tears as she nodded and turned away.

He watched the escape pods go, waited until they were nothing more than faded silver streaks against the black backdrop of the planet, and then he pulled the Falcon up, back through the atmosphere and into a close orbit. His mind was a blank as he scanned the ship's maintenance files, ran a basic diagnostic on the landing gear, and found absolutely nothing. Whatever Vader had done to his ship, he had covered his tracks well.

There was only one thing to do. Han looked over his shoulder; the maintenance bay had never seemed so far away. He stood too fast, and his head spun. Spots flashed in front of his eyes, and he vomited. There was blood in it. Blood. He dragged his feet through it, trying not to see. He had to get back there. He had to deactivate this thing, get to a medical ship, make things right. Somehow, somehow, he had to make things right.

He had almost made it out of the cockpit when he fell. He vomited again, and when he tried to pull himself up his hands and feet didn't want to respond.

_I'm never gonna make it to the maintenance bay._

The thought was terrifying.

_I'm dying._

That one, oddly, gave him strength. Gritting his teeth, he got up on his hands and knees and crawled, not to the maintenance bay, but back to the pilot's seat. It seemed right. He'd lived the best parts of his life among the stars, and if he had to die, he was glad that it would be here. Not on Bespin, not at Jabba's palace, not in Vader's fortress but here, in the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon_.

He couldn't just leave it here, waiting for some unsuspecting Rebel ship to come pick him up. They would, once Leia had time to tell them about it, and Han had no guarantee that being pulled into a docking bay wouldn't have the same effect as trying to land on the planet below.

He would take it to Coruscant, he thought with a bitter grin. Take it right into the heart of the blasted Empire, let them see how it felt when it was a couple billion of their friends and family turned into space dust. Then he thought of Leia, and he shook his head. No. Let Luke take care of Vader and the Emperor. It wasn't the people of Coruscant who had done anything wrong, any more than it was the people of Alderaan.

_This ship's not gonna take out anyone who isn't dying anyway._

He apologized silently to Chewie, to Leia, and to the family they would never get to raise, and then Han turned the _Falcon_ directly toward the sun. The navicomputer screamed at him, and he shut it off. "This is no mistake," he said. "Not this time."

He gave it full throttle.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

"Rise, young Jedi." The Emperor spoke, but Luke was in no position to obey.

He lay on the cold, hard floor. As far as he could tell, the electrocution had stopped, but his muscles were still locked in a tight spasm. His eyes were open. He blinked; they were dry and gritty. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of his mouth. It occurred to him that he should be ashamed of this, and wondered why he couldn't be bothered.

"Rise! Or have you not yet had enough of my discipline?"

Luke's entire body felt like it was on pins and needles, and it responded sluggishly to his commands. He tried to raise himself up on one elbow, and wasn't sure at first if he'd succeeded. Less than a meter from the floor, his head still spun with something like vertigo, and the grinning face of the Emperor was reflected in triplicate before his throbbing eyes. "…can't…" he managed to croak.

The Emperor scowled, and Luke braced himself for another attack. "Very well," the bitter old voice proclaimed. "Then crawl."

Luke did.

"Excellent!" The Emperor cackled with glee. "You will make a fine apprentice. So much more…_resilient_ than your father."

Vader said nothing; his breathing was the only outward sign that he still lived at all.

_Father?_ Luke called out hesitantly, but there was no reply. _Ben?_ But Ben was gone, and Luke had no idea if he would ever return. He'd given his life twice, then…. Luke told himself not to think about it.

"Kenobi can no longer help you," the Emperor remarked, as though it were the most insignificant thing in the world. "And as for your father…we will deal with him later. First, we will watch your friends die."

_Han._ Luke rose to his knees. They shook, but they supported him, and with effort, he was able to use the rim of the window for leverage and pull himself onto uncertain feet. He looked up at the sky. There was nothing to see, at least not with his eyes, but he knew that Han was up there. Dying. Alone. _Han, I never wanted this._

To his surprise, it was Vader who answered. _We never do._

"Father?" Luke spoke aloud.

"Silence!" The Emperor commanded. "Watch. And _feel_."

Luke knew what was in Han's mind, knew what was going to happen before it did, but there was no way to brace himself for what he felt when it came. It was like a hole being ripped in the universe. Tears welled in his eyes and he doubled over in pain. Something had been torn out of him – it wasn't the presence of sadness or anger or actual, physical hurt but a horrible absence. Like a blind spot on his vision, like…like the burning sensations in his hand. He kept reaching out for something that wasn't there, that would never be there, and what he felt in its place was a ghost, a whisper, a last little sigh of determination that said: _Never again_.

"No." He felt physically sick. He retched, but there was nothing there either, nothing to expunge that could make this go away.

"Yes." The Emperor laughed. "Your friend is dead. Kenobi is no more. You were powerless to save them. And you are powerless to save your father now."

Luke turned his head to look at Vader. He was barely moving. He couldn't stand, could hardly breathe. The fingers on his left hand opened and closed, as though blindly reaching for something. His right arm lay lifeless at his side.

"Pitiful," the Emperor said. "You are weak, young Skywalker. I can make you strong. Never again will you know the humiliation of defeat. Take your father's place and know the power of the Dark Side!"

"You're right," Luke said. "I couldn't save Han. But your power is far greater than mine."

"Yes. You are indeed a fast learner. Accept the Dark Side. Strike your father down, and the power to command the universe will be yours."

Luke nodded. He took Vader's lightsaber from his belt, testing its considerable weight in his hand. He ignited it and let it cast its red glow on his face and clothes. It was just a weapon, after all. Just a machine. No different from his own. A tool. A tool to make sure that this would never – _never_ – happen again.

He stepped forward. Vader's breathing quickened. "Luke," he said. "Son."

"Father." Luke raised the lightsaber. "For the future."

He swung it down and around, spinning in a half-circle on still-trembling legs and narrowly missing the top of Vader's helmet. The red blade sliced through the air in an uneven arc. It was poor form, but it was good enough. The Emperor's smile turned to an expression of horror and shock. The blade cut through his black robes, sliced his cane neatly in two…and then there was nothing but a pile of smoldering cloth where the leader of the galaxy had stood only moments before.

"Luke."

Luke looked down at the weapon in his hand, at the crumpled black robe and the severed staff. It was over. There was no joy in the thought, and no remorse. It was over, and he was tired, and he had no idea where he or anyone would go from here.

"Luke." The voice cut through his thoughts again, and it took him a moment to realize that it rasped through a ruined respirator, and not only through his own exhausted mind.

"Father." Luke turned, and knelt at Vader's side. His voice was dull and emotionless; there was nothing left to feel. "Why?"

"You…did the right thing, son."

Luke shook his head. "I didn't do it for you."

"I know."

"You were wrong. I'm not like you. I'm nothing like you, and I never will be."

"You are a Jedi," Vader said. "In that, you are more like me than you know. Perhaps someday…."

"You betrayed me, Father."

"I could have made you strong."

"No." Luke stepped back, away from the man he had once idolized, then feared. Now he felt nothing but the dull shadows of pity, disgust, and shame. "What you have isn't strength."

"I could have given you –"

"You've given me nothing. Han was right," he said. "You're not my family. You and your Emperor have taken my family from me, one at a time."

"Luke," Vader paused, as if considering his next words. "That was never my intent."

"You killed Han. You killed Ben. You killed my aunt and uncle. You were wrong, father. There are things that can't be replaced. Or returned."

"Their loss has given you strength."

"At what cost?" Luke shook his head. "'We never do.' That's what you said to me. You…" He looked down at his hand, still holding the lightsaber.. "You've lost someone too. What happened to you, Father? How did you become…this?" Luke loosened his grip, letting the weapon slide to the ground. He was trembling and exhausted in body and mind.

"Son." Vader's voice was even and sure. "You blame the Emperor for what I have become. You don't understand. Perhaps…you never will."

"Then tell me! What don't I understand?" A wave of nausea swept over him, and Luke lowered his head. He breathed in deep, and let it out slowly, but the feeling only grew stronger. He was shaking. The whole world was shaking.

It took him a minute to realize that it wasn't in his head. The world really was shaking – like a landspeeder with bad hydraulics, he thought, and winced at the mundaneness of the thought. "What is this?" he asked, and Vader raised his head in a vain attempt to sit up.

"It is the Emperor. This place…it responds to his will."

"But I –"

"You did well, my son, but your battle is not yet won. The Dark Side is more powerful than you know, and death was not an obstacle even for the likes of Obi-Wan. The Emperor grows strong." Vader took a deep breath, and his body shuddered with the effort. "I must go to him."

It took a moment for Vader's meaning to sink in. "Father, no."

"There is no other way. Anakin Skywalker was a weak man, and a weaker Jedi. But I am strong…with the Dark Side of the Force."

"But there's so much you have to tell me!"

"Luke…please. There is not much time."

Luke could feel the planet itself, boiling and cracking and tearing itself to pieces beneath his feet. He could feel his friends – Leia, struggling between panic and grief, and Lando and Chewie, hanging on to a last desperate strain of hope. They didn't know about Han, not for sure, and Luke envied them for not knowing. He could feel the darkness around him, like a storm that had been in the air and now was looming black and dangerous on the horizon. It was the Emperor, and he was furious. Luke saw all of these things, wrapped around him, tangled with his own feelings in a web of terror and pain – but oddly enough, in that moment, the only thing that he felt from Vader was love. It was a love that was simple and deep and pure, in a way, despite the regrets and the conflict that ran through it. It wasn't a love that depended on good looks or even good deeds. It was the love of a father who cared for him somehow, in spite of everything, just for living and for being and for being here, now.

"Okay," he said at last. "I'll do it."

"Obi-Wan…has taught you all that you need to know. You are…a powerful Jedi, Luke. The Force will live on in you."

Luke nodded. There was nothing he could say. Pieces of the ceiling had begun to crumble, to rain down on them. One hit him on the shoulder. Another bounced off Vader's helmet and rolled away, and Luke felt tears begin to well up in his eyes.

"Please, son." Vader reached out with what might have been the last of his strength and took Luke's hand. "It is the only thing you can do for me now."

"Okay," he said. "I…I'll try not to hurt you." He closed his eyes and followed the connections, back into the tangle of machinery he had twisted and destroyed. There was so much that he didn't understand, but Luke realized with a sickening determination that it didn't really matter. All he had to do was shut it down. One by one, as quickly and as gently as he could, he severed the connections. Shut the systems down. Just like a machine. Vader's presence shimmered and faded – no, not faded, but spread, until he was no longer confined to his prison of a body, but flowing through the planet in pursuit of the greater darkness. The hand holding Luke's fell limp, and he let it fall away.

His mind and his body were numb. He was vaguely aware of his knees, threatening to buckle underneath him as he stood, but he didn't know if his weakness was a result of the tremors or of the Emperor's attack, and at this point it didn't really matter. He left Vader's lightsaber with its owner, and retrieved his own – his father's – from where it had fallen with Han. The casing was cracked; Luke had no idea if it would ignite, but he returned it to its place on his belt, holding it in place with a stump that was as numb, for once, as the rest of his body while his remaining fingers worked the clasp.

Rubble continued to rain down, growing larger and more frequent as the structure of the cavern itself began to weaken and fail. The stairs were cracked and ruined; Luke navigated them as carefully as he could with a stiff, hesitant gait. His body didn't want to do what he told it to. Other than fall down and go to sleep, it didn't seem to want to do much of anything at all. Running was out of the question. Vader had saved his life before; he could only trust that his father would be able to do it again.

If the air had been heavy and ominous before, it was aggressive and anxious now. The tremors subsided for a moment, and once again Luke was jealous of his friends for their breathless, hesitant relief. He wished, not for the first time, that he had never learned to feel the Force. He wished that he didn't know that something worse was going on beneath the planet's crust – that something worse was coming for him, and that he was in no shape to outrun it. He tried to quicken his pace and stumbled. A stab of pain shot through his ankle, but when he tested his weight on it, it held. He was grateful for that pain, sharp and immediate and real as it was. It was something to focus on, something to stop his mind from reaching out for Han and for Ben the same way that his body kept trying to connect with the hand that would never return.

The earth began to shake again, and Luke felt the tenuous warmth that had been Vader's presence withdreaw. _Don't think about him_, he told himself, even though a smaller, more insistent voice was whispering:_ It's over_. Rocks chased him down the mountain, and he knew that it would only be a matter of time before larger boulders followed. The air was hot; he was sweating. Luke glanced over his shoulder, and froze.

Molten lava flowed from what was left of the throne room, though that uppermost window. It poured down the side of the mountain, swallowing the twisted pillars and stalagmites as it went. It was in the tunnels too, drowning that broken staircase and following his path. It would be here soon, and he would die, and it would all have been for nothing.

_Luke…trust me._

Hearing his father's voice was enough; Luke forced his legs to move, forced them to put as much distance between him and the lava as he could. All he had to do was get to the shuttle. Luke didn't know where he was going from here. He didn't know if he had any place _to_ go. But he knew that he had to live. For Ben. For Han. For his father. If he could give them nothing else, he had to give them that.

Luke had taken no more than a few steps when he slipped. He reached out for something, anything to hold onto, but there was nothing there, and he fell. He caught himself with his bad arm, and again the jolt of pain that he felt was a blessed relief – proof, at least, that he was still capable of feeling anything at all. He fell into a graceless roll, letting gravity take him as far as it would before brushing himself off and resuming his half-running, half-limping descent. Either the tremors were stronger now, or he was just getting weaker, and what was left of the rock formations that had served as handrails and supports on the way up had become treacherous weapons that might fall and crush him at any moment if he got too close.

Luke could feel the heat on his back. It wouldn't be long now, and if he was almost to the foot of the mountain, he still had the width of the valley before him. He didn't dare to look back. He knew where the shuttle was; the fog obscured its shape but it was as clear as ever in the eyes of the Force. It was so far away. He wondered if Leia would hear him if he told her to go on.

He was about to give it a try when a cold wind hit him in the face. It pushed him back against one of the oversized stalagmites and forced him to shield his face with his hand. "What the…?" In a fraction of a second, hell had become Hoth. Somehow, against all odds, it was snowing.

"Father?" Luke stumbled forward as the blizzard raged on. He didn't look over his shoulder, didn't want to see the battle of the elements that would decide…what? Nothing so grand as the fate of the galaxy. Just whether a farmboy, a princess, a gambler and a Wookiee lived to fight another day. At the moment, Luke couldn't think of a more important cause.

It was hot. It was cold. Luke couldn't count the number of times the tides of the battle seemed to change as he made his unsteady way across the valley and up the plateau. The shuttle took shape through the fog. The landing ramp was down, and there was someone – Leia, it had to be Leia – waving to him, waiting to carry him home.

She tried to get him to lie down, but he couldn't, not yet. He followed her to the cockpit and sat beside her, holding his arm against his chest and breathing raggedly as the planet beneath them rumbled and roared, simultaneously freezing and burning as it tore itself to pieces before their eyes.

"They're dead," he said. "It's over."

Leia only nodded. He knew what she wasn't asking, and knew that she knew the answer already, just as well as he did. He didn't have the heart to make her fears a reality. Not yet. Not here. When they were away from all of this. Safe.

The world had grown a little fuzzy around the edges, and as Luke let his head fall back and his breathing slow, he thought he heard Leia say, in a voice that trembled with uncertainty, "We did it. We won."

"If you can call it that," Lando muttered, and Luke couldn't have agreed with him more.


	27. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_**Five Years Later**_

It was an out of the way village on an out of the way world. There was a transport that came through once a week with food and supplies, and sometimes a visitor or two from the spaceport, but other than that the main road – the only real road – largely went unused. The climate was harsh here, the economic prospects dim, but for most of the villagers leaving simply wasn't an option. This wide spot in the road, on a planet that was nothing more than an unnamed speck on most star maps, was the only home they had ever known.

There was only one offworlder in the village, and when the speeder swept through on that lazy summer afternoon, there was no question in the villagers' minds as to its destination. The weekly supply run was still a few days off, and this was a city speeder – sleek, silver, with four doors and windows tinted for privacy. Word swept through town almost as fast as the vehicle itself. Skywalker had a visitor.

She stepped down from the speeder and paid the driver, waving him off on his way, and she was as out of place here as her ride had been. Elegance graced her every movement, and it didn't take city smarts to see beyond the casual clothes and the simple, functional braid in her hair. This woman was something special. Even here on the edge of the Outer Rim, where most people knew of the fall of the Empire and the rise of the fledgling New Republic only as a rumor, a story of exotic worlds and exaggerated heroes, there wasn't a soul in town who couldn't tell that much just by looking at her.

Luke was sitting on his front porch when she arrived, bent over an ancient transmitter with a frown on his face and sweat beading on his brow. This was where he could usually be found, working on whatever bits of junk the villagers had brought over to be fixed. They brought him questions too. Whether it was the weather or the crops or the local predators, the man they called Skywalker – with nothing so pretentious as "Jedi" or even "Commander" to precede it – usually knew what was going to happen before it did.

He'd known about this visitor too, and he'd been waiting for her.

"Luke!" she called out.

He looked up at the sound of her voice. "Leia!" He set his work aside and ran to greet her. They embraced like old friends. Like lovers. Like family.

He led her to the house and they sat together, watching the late afternoon sun as it cast long shadows over the outskirts of the village and the seemingly endless steppe that lay beyond. The boy – his apprentice, Skywalker called him, although what exactly he was teaching the kid was anyone's guess – stuck his head out of the front door and stammered a greeting.

"Do you want me to bring you something to drink?" he asked.

"No, thank you," Leia replied.

Luke smiled up at the kid. "We're fine," he said. "You stick with your exercises." The kid nodded and disappeared back into the house behind them.

Leia sat on the low, dusty stoop. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," Luke replied. "How are you? How's everyone?"

"You'd be so proud of what we've accomplished, Luke. I – I wish you could see it for yourself."

"I will," he promised. "Someday."

"Lando's back on Bespin," Leia said, and Luke nodded.

"I heard."

"He's a born politician." She shook her head. "Not that I'm surprised."

"And Chewie?"

Leia's expression darkened. "He's still on Kashyyyk. It's been…hard for him."

"Not as hard as it's been on you."

"You…you seem happy here."

Luke looked up at the house. It wasn't much more than a shack, really. It had belonged to a local man – a mechanic, handyman, a jack-of-all-trades – until he'd been drafted into the Imperial Navy and assigned to the Death Star. Luke had found the boy here, living alone…. But he didn't explain any of that. Instead, he simply said, "I am. These people need me. And I can't live in the city, any more than you could live in a place like this."

Leia frowned. "We miss you. You know that…there will always be a place for you with the New Republic. With the fleet."

"I know," he said. "But I can't."

Leia nodded. "I understand. It's just not the same without you and…and Han. Luke, I…there's something I have to tell you." She looked at him with pleading eyes. "I hope you'll be happy for me."

"What is it?" Luke asked.

"I'm getting married." The words came out in a rush. She looked away, looked down at her hands as though they were the most interesting things in the world.

"That – that's wonderful." Luke smiled and hugged her, and when she pulled away there were tears in her eyes.

"Is it?"

"Of course it is."

"He's…he's from Alderaan," Leia explained. "He's a good man, and…"

Luke took her hand and looked her in the eyes. "You deserve to be happy, Leia."

"I am," she said. "I will be. But…"

"Han would want you to be happy."

Leia shook her head. "He would want me to be happy with him."

"Maybe." Luke smiled at the thought of their old friend. "You can't change the past. The only thing you can do is to make the future better. I learned that from…my father."

"So you'll be there?"

"Wouldn't miss it." He smiled again and looked down at his faded fatigues. "I might even dress for the occasion."

"Thank you." She tried to smile at the joke, but as she looked down at her fingers, still intertwined with Luke's, her smile faded and her forehead wrinkled in concern.

"What is it, Leia?"

"I…. Chancellor Mothma gave me this personally. She asked me to give it to you." She released his hand, pulled a slim datapad out of her pocket, and handed it to him.

He looked at it at first with interest, but then his expression darkened. "What is this?"

"We got the technical information from the Imperial health system. A lot of it came from…I don't know if you knew this, but Vader…."

"I knew," he said flatly, and set the datapad aside. He didn't need to look too closely at the schematics; he'd seen them all before, in his dreams.

"We've been able to learn incredible things from Imperial cybernetics. It would mean more surgery, and maybe an extended stay on Coruscant while the droids monitor your results, but…they want to do this for you, Luke. As thanks for all you've done."

Luke shook his head. "I appreciate it," he said. "But I don't think so."

"If this is about the money…."

"It isn't." Luke looked down at his hand, and at the stump where – in another lifetime – the other one had been. "It's amazing technology, Leia, and there are lots of people out there who'll benefit from it. I'm happy for them, but…."

"I – I don't understand," she said. "Why not?"

He picked up the transmitter and gave it another look. The switch appeared to flip itself, and a burst of static issued from the ancient speaker. He'd have it fixed by tomorrow, and if the old man who'd brought it to him wouldn't understand how he'd done it with one hand and a shack full of rusty parts and outdated tools, that disbelief wouldn't diminish his gratitude. Luke looked up at Leia and smiled. "I just don't think I need it."

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you very much for your support. I truly appreciate everyone who has read, reviewed, and otherwise encouraged me over the past nine months as I have written, edited, and revised this story. I would like to stress once again my thanks to my beta readers: stargazerlily (all chapters), Luke1 (chapters 1-8) and Kellie (chapters 22-epilogue). This story would not be what it is without you.

I would very much like to hear from my readers - what you liked, what you didn't like, what you just couldn't bring yourself to care about one way or the other. I welcome anonymous reviews, PMs, or you can contact me on LiveJournal (my link is on my profile page) where I also accept anonymous comments, etc. I absolutely appreciate criticism as well as compliments. Thank you very much!


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